Don't Dream It's Over
by MidnightBlue88
Summary: AndyBrian slash. When Andy comes home from college for winter break, Brian finds that a lot can change in 3 months. He has doubts about where they really stand, even as his own feelings grow beyond his control. [Sequel to 'When You Call My Name']
1. The Distance

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Breakfast Club. I also don't own the title, "Don't Dream It's Over", which belongs to Crowded House.  
**Summary: **Sequel to 'When You Call My Name'. When Andy comes home from college for winter break, Brian finds that a lot can change in three months. He has doubts about where they really stand, even as his own feelings grow beyond his control. Brian's POV, Andy/Brian slash. Series.  
**Rating: **M for language and sexual content.  
**Warning: **This story includes slash, a romantic relationship between two guys. If this makes you uncomfortable, please don't read. Also, as previously mentioned, this story includes sex…between two guys. If _this_ makes you uncomfortable, please don't read.  
**A/N: **This is the sequel to "When You Call My Name", which detailed Brian and Andy's relationship after detention. It is highly recommended that you read that story first, since it's obviously how the whole thing got started. I was going to write this story as a one-shot, but then I realized that it would work better as a series, so here it is, chapter one. I really enjoyed writing the first story and this one, and I hope you enjoy reading it, too. Thanks to Lori, who obsessed over the boys with me, and to Pam, the grammar queen. I really appreciate it.

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Chapter One: The Distance

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_December 14, 1984  
Shermer, Illinois_

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"Brian!"

Brian sighed and reached for the remote so that he could turn the volume down on the television. "What?" he called out.

Morgan, Brian's seven-year-old sister, ran into the living room holding a juice box. "I spilled juice on the carpet in my room," she told him.

Brian let out another sigh. "What kind of juice?"

Morgan stepped forward and held up the juice box for his inspection. Grape juice, 100 natural. No sugar added. Made with real California grapes.

"How do you spill something out of a straw?" he asked her, standing up from the couch to get paper towels from the kitchen. "It's almost impossible."

"I don't know," Morgan responded. She had followed him into the kitchen. "It just came out."

Brian grabbed a handful of paper towels and a bottle of carpet cleaning fluid and started walking back to Morgan's room, which was right next to his, separated by a small bathroom right in the middle. "Is there a lot?" he asked.

Morgan shrugged. She was chewing on the straw, which was still poking out of the juice box. Her light brown hair had come out of the messy ponytail their mother had put it in just before she left for work that morning, and the loose, curly strands were sticking out from her head like a halo, or antennas. She had grape juice on her t-shirt, too.

When they got to Morgan's room, Brian saw that she'd not only spilled grape juice on the carpet, but also on the rug and the bed. It was like she'd walked around her room, squeezing the juice box like a perfume atomizer. Brian turned to look at her. "How did you do that?"

Morgan shrugged again. "It just spilled."

Brian sighed and dropped to his knees to clean the rug first. "Mom is going to be mad when she gets home. You know you have to be careful when you eat in your room."

Morgan let out a deep sigh, but didn't say anything.

Brian worked on the spot for a few minutes, doing his best to make sure the stain didn't set. His mother would hate to see the carpet stained. Morgan's bedspread was replaceable, but new carpet was expensive, and the Johnsons didn't have lots of extra money to throw around, especially with Brian graduating in five months and planning to go off to college. Fortunately, Brian's grades were good enough that he was almost guaranteed a scholarship to whatever university he decided on, but they still had to be careful.

"You missed a spot."

Brian looked up. "What?"

Morgan pointed to the carpet next to his right knee. "You missed a spot."

Brian shot her a glare and kept scrubbing at the floor.

On most days, Brian didn't really mind looking after his sister. She was messy and forgetful, and she left her stuff lying around everywhere, which Brian hated, but she was pretty agreeable most of the time, and she didn't cause him much trouble. Not that he had much of a choice anyway since both of their parents worked during the day. His mother got off early enough to pick Morgan up in the afternoons while school was in session, but during summer and winter breaks, Brian had to be home looking after her. He wondered vaguely what they were going to do next fall when he was away at college.

Which made him think of Andy, of course. Everything reminded him of Andy, if he was honest. Video games, food, homework, sports. He hadn't seen him in more than three months, not since Andy left for Ohio to start his freshman year. They'd talked on the phone a couple of times during the semester, but not nearly as often as Brian had hoped they would. In fact, it was the middle of December, the first real day of winter break, and the two of them hadn't spoken in over a month. Andy had told him at the beginning of November that he wouldn't be home for Thanksgiving since the entire family was going to his grandmother's house in New York, but that he would be home for Christmas. But that was a month ago, and Brian didn't know what day he'd be coming back anyway, so he was trying not to think too much about when and if Andy was going to call.

Suddenly, the phone rang.

"Go get the phone, Morgan," Brian told his sister, not even looking up from the floor. Then he realized that it was probably his mother, calling to make sure that they hadn't burned the house down. He could only imagine Morgan telling her that she'd spilled grape juice all over the carpet in her bedroom. He looked up, hoping to catch her before she left so that he could tell her not to say anything yet, but she was already gone.

Brian sighed and went back to cleaning the floor. His thoughts turned once again to Andy, which meant that he was doing a really bad job of not obsessing over him. But how could he not, really? Andy was his best friend, or at least he had been before he left for college. Brian knew that Andy had friends in Ohio, mostly guys from the wrestling team, and he knew that it was probably ridiculous to expect that he and Andy were just going to pick up where they'd left off the summer before, even if he really hoped that they could.

Especially after the kiss.

Brian stopped scrubbing for a moment and settled back on his heels. The night before Andy left for Ohio, the two of them had made out on the baseball field behind the school. Brian had known for a long time that he felt that way about Andy, even though he'd tried, unsuccessfully, not to admit it to himself. But after the kiss, it was kind of impossible to keep pretending. It felt like he'd been sprinkling lighter fluid around, one drop at a time, for five months, and then Andy came along and dropped a lit match on the ground. The whole place had gone up in flames, and there wasn't a damn thing that Brian could do about it.

Andy wasn't making things any easier for him, either. In their handful of phone conversations, neither of them had said one word about what had happened between them on the field that night. Brian had wanted to so badly, but he also didn't want to be the one to bring it up first. Instinctively, he knew that Andy wouldn't respond very well, so he kept quiet about it, even though he had so many thoughts and questions. Like, did Andy like the kiss as much as Brian did? Did he want to do it again? Were they still just friends, or were they something more? Was Andy dating other people in college? Brian's stomach tightened jealously imagining Andy with someone else, and he pushed the thought away before he could go down that road…again.

"It's for you."

Brian looked up to see that Morgan had returned to the bedroom. "Who is it?"

Morgan shrugged. "I don't know. A boy."

Brian's heart skipped a beat. "What was his name?"

Morgan shrugged again and continued chewing on her juice box straw.

Brian walked out into the living room, where the wall phone was dangling off of the hook, swaying back and forth. Tentatively, he grabbed the cord and pulled the phone up to his ear. "Hello?"

"Hey."

Brian's stomach fluttered nervously at the sound of his voice. "Hey." He swallowed. "What's, uh…what's up?"

"Not much," said Andy. "I just got back in town yesterday, and I was wondering if you wanted to hang out. You know, go back to Burger King or whatever, like old times."

Old times. Brian nodded, even though Andy obviously couldn't see him. "Yeah, that sounds great. I mean, I can't go right now or anything, because I have to watch my sister until my mom gets home, but maybe after…" Brian paused, trying to slow himself down. "Um, when were you thinking?"

"I don't know. When does your mom get home?"

"At about three thirty."

"Okay, so I'll just pick you up at four."

Brian hesitated. "Okay. That sounds, uh…that sounds good."

"So, I'll see you later then."

Brian nodded. "Yeah, yeah. Later."

Brian heard a click, signaling that Andy had hung up. Brian kept the phone pressed against his ear for a second or two longer than necessary before he reached up and replaced it on the cradle. His heart was racing, but he didn't know whether it was from nervousness or excitement.

"Who was that?"

Brian looked up to see Morgan standing a few feet away, still holding that damn juice box in her hand. At this rate, the entire house was going to be covered in 100 percent natural, no sugar added California grape juice.

"It was a friend," he told her.

Morgan studied him closely. "Are you feeling sick?" she asked finally.

Brian frowned. "No, why?"

"Because your face is all red," she told him.

Brian sighed and went back to Morgan's room to finish cleaning the carpet.

* * *

Mrs. Johnson arrived home at exactly 3:30 in the afternoon, just as Brian had predicted. Thankfully, Morgan didn't tell her about the grape juice stain the moment she walked through the door, which gave Brian the chance to break it to her gently. He'd managed to work out most of the stain, and what was left could easily be covered by a rug. Surprisingly enough, his mother wasn't that angry about it, though she did tell Morgan that she was never allowed to take juice into her room again.

At about four o'clock, Brian was in his bedroom changing into a navy blue sweater when the doorbell rang. Brian stopped fiddling with his collar and walked out into the living room, which was thankfully empty. He opened the front door to find Andy standing on his front porch, hands jammed into the pockets of his red and black letter jacket. His cheeks and nose were pink from the cold. God, he'd missed him so much.

"Hey, man," Andy said, smiling widely. "What's up?"

Brian couldn't help but smile back. "Not much."

Andy nodded. "You hungry?" Brian nodded. "Let's go."

On the way to Burger King, Andy told him about Thanksgiving with his family in New York, about how his dad and his aunt Maggie had gotten into it over _something_, just like they always did when the Clark family got together to celebrate the holidays. Brian watched him as he talked, trying to figure out how much he'd changed. He looked about the same as the last time he'd seen him, except for his hair, which was shorter. But there was something else, too. Something that Brian couldn't really put his finger on.

"What about you? How was your Thanksgiving?"

Brian blinked. "Oh, uh…it was fine. We went to my aunt and uncle's house in Evanston."

Andy nodded. "Did you have fun?"

Brian shrugged. "I guess. I mean, it was okay. It was…"

"Family?" Andy offered.

Brian paused thoughtfully, then smiled. "Yeah."

Andy pulled his Bronco into the Burger King parking lot and cut the engine. The two of them walked inside, ordered, and grabbed their regular booth in the corner by the window.

"So, tell me about your semester," said Andy, unwrapping his cheeseburger.

"Oh." Brian pulled open a package of ketchup and squirted it out into his container of chicken nuggets. "It was okay."

Andy took a bite of his burger. "How'd your classes go?"

"Good," Brian answered. "I got all A's."

Andy nodded and swallowed his food. "What were you taking?"

For the first time since Andy picked him up, Brian's heart sank a little bit. He remembered telling Andy about all of his classes at the beginning of the semester, about which ones he loved and which ones he hated. His favorite was an elective European Literature class, which he'd told Andy about in some detail the last time they'd spoken on the phone. Brian, who knew Andy's schedule by heart and knew all the classes that were giving him trouble and all the classes he didn't mind, tried to remind himself that Andy had a lot going on with college and that he really couldn't expect him to keep track of little things like that.

"I was taking, um, Physics II, Chemistry II, Calculus, and this other class, an elective, about European Literature from--"

"Man, I hate Calculus," Andy interrupted, swallowing a mouthful of food. "I had to take it this semester, too."

_Yeah, I know. _Brian cleared his throat. "How did you do?"

Andy shrugged. "C. I'm just glad it's over with."

Brian nodded. "What about your other classes? Didn't you say you liked that history class you were taking?"

Andy nodded. If he was surprised that Brian had remembered which classes he was taking, he didn't show it. "Yeah, it was alright. I ended up with an A-, which was really good."

Brian picked up another chicken nugget and dipped it into the puddle of ketchup. "That's great."

Andy nodded and chuckled. "My friend Greg was in the class with me, and he didn't do as well. He kept asking the other guys to write his papers for him, but no one would do it." Andy laughed again, obviously deep into the memory. "It was really funny."

Brian nodded stiffly. "Yeah, that's…that's funny," he said, forcing himself to sound cheerful.

Andy nodded and took another bite of his cheeseburger. "Yeah, it was."

Brian nodded again, not sure what Andy expected him to say about someone he'd never even met. Apparently, Andy just wanted to tell the story and didn't expect anything, because he dove into his cheeseburger again.

Brian watched Andy eat, trying to imagine what Andy was really thinking about being back home and seeing him again. He didn't seem particularly uncomfortable being there with him, but Brian couldn't tell if that was a good thing or not, especially since he was so nervous that he could hardly even taste his own food. He wanted some sign that Andy had thought about this as much as he had, but there weren't any.

"So, uh, how does it feel to be home again?" Brian asked.

Andy shrugged and swallowed the last of his cheeseburger. "Fine."

Brian nodded slowly. "What about your dad?"

"Still an asshole," said Andy, "But he hasn't been one to me yet, so everything's okay so far."

Brian nodded and took another bite of his chicken nuggets. When he swallowed, he wiped his mouth with a napkin and looked up at Andy again. "How long are you going to be in town for?"

"Until the thirteenth of January. The semester starts on the fifteenth." Andy shook his head. "I hope my dad doesn't start shit with me while I'm home. It's been so nice to not have him breathing down my neck all semester."

Brian offered him a hesitant smile, but Andy was too distracted by his milkshake to notice. "I guess it would be nice to get away from all of the pressure."

Andy scoffed. "Yeah, definitely. At school, I can just do whatever I want, and I don't have to worry about what he'd do if he found out. It's none of his business anymore."

Brian nodded. He remembered something Andy had told him the previous summer, about how earning a full scholarship was the best thing that ever could have happened to him because it meant that he wasn't financially dependent on his parents anymore, and therefore his father couldn't tell him what to do. In theory. Brian wondered how it worked in practice. "That must be nice," he said.

Andy shook his head and let out a mirthless chuckle. "Man, he would shit bricks if he knew what kind of stuff went on this past semester."

Brian's stomach went cold. "What do you mean?" he asked. "What kind of stuff?"

Andy shrugged. "Parties, drinking, whatever. All the stuff he never let me do back in high school."

Brian nodded, but it was forced. "Oh."

Andy let out a little laugh, and then said the worst thing imaginable. "Yeah, we had some _fun_ at the sorority houses." He grinned and shook his head. "Those girls were hot."

Brian felt like he'd been sucker-punched. "What?"

"The girls," said Andy, a little bit louder than before. "They were really hot."

Brian had never felt so stupid and small in his entire life. He swallowed deeply and forced himself to nod. "Oh…right."

Andy didn't seem to notice his discomfort. He nodded at Brian's tray. "You going to eat those?" he asked, referring to Brian's half-eaten carton of chicken nuggets.

Brian shook his head and pushed the tray away from himself. "No," he said quietly. "I'm not hungry."

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After they finished eating, Andy dropped Brian off at his house again, offering vague plans to hang out again sometime soon. Brian was still reeling from Andy's stories at lunch and could only manage a brief nod before he stumbled out of the Bronco and went into the house.

That night, as he lay in bed, he tried to imagine what Andy was doing at his house. He imagined him changing clothes, brushing his teeth, talking to his mother. He'd done it before, while Andy was at college, but this time it was different. _Andy_ was different. He hung out with wrestlers, college guys. He talked more, laughed a little bit louder. His letter jacket was red and black, not blue, and his hair was shorter. All in all, Brian was finding the changes hard to process.

And the hardest part to process was definitely Andy's new social life. Brian's life hadn't changed much over the months, if he was honest. He ate lunch with the Physics Club like he always did, but he didn't confide in them the way he used to before he met Andy. Andy was still his best friend, despite the distance and the infrequent conversations. The problem was, Brian was pretty sure that he wasn't Andy's best friend anymore, and that realization hurt more than he could have anticipated, if he _had_ anticipated it, which he hadn't. That said, it was hard to know which part hurt more, the new friends or the sorority girls. Brian kept imagining Andy at frat parties, getting drunk with his wrestling buddies and making out with really beautiful girls. Maybe they even had sex. The idea made him nauseous, but he couldn't force it out of his mind. He lay there for a long time, unable to sleep.

Sometime after midnight, there was a knock on his window. Brian's eyes flew open, and his heart started hammering loudly. He sat up in bed and reached over to pull back the curtains.

Andy was standing outside, his face just inches away from the glass, eyes narrowed in Brian's direction like he was concentrating really hard on something. Brian unlocked the window and slid it open, and Andy put his hand on the ledge and hauled himself up onto the window sill. Brian tried to scoot out of the way, but Andy fell onto the bed, half on top of him.

Brian didn't know who made the first move--maybe it was both at the same time, like magnets--but it didn't take long for their mouths to find one another. Andy was still on top of him, straddling Brian's legs, his hands tangled up in Brian's comforter. Brian wrapped his arms around Andy's back, and they tumbled down onto the mattress together, Andy on top. Their mouths came together again, so hard that Brian was worried they were going to hurt one another. Andy's lips and cheeks were cold from being outside, but the rest of his body was warm against his, and Brian's head was swimming with heady pleasure. He tightened his arms around Andy's torso and brought their bodies closer together.

At some point during all of this, Andy might have said something like, "I'm sorry," and Brian might have said something like, "It's okay," but everything was such a blur that all he could really remember was how good it felt to be able to touch him after being apart for so long. How relieved he was that it wasn't over.

Andy shifted his hips forward slightly, and Brian felt Andy's groin press firmly against his abdomen. The movement flooded his stomach with a warm wave of desire, and without even thinking about it he reached down and put his hands on Andy's hips, pulling him tighter against him. Andy let out a little moan against Brian's mouth, as if after four months he just couldn't keep it in any longer. Brian's heart skipped a beat, and he wondered if Andy had dreamed about this, too. If he'd stayed up late at night, unable to sleep because he couldn't keep Brian's face out of his head. Brian hoped it was the truth. He wanted to believe that Andy had missed him as much as he'd missed Andy.

After a few minutes of frantic kissing, both boys were breathing heavily, drawing deep breaths of air from their nostrils so that they wouldn't have to break the kiss. Brian suddenly realized that they were making out in his bed, right down the hall from where his parents were (hopefully) sleeping. He pulled his mouth away from Andy's.

"My parents," he whispered.

Andy glanced over at the door, then back at Brian. "Are they asleep?" he asked breathlessly.

Brian shook his head. "I don't know."

Andy took a deep breath and released it against Brian's cheek. "We could go to the baseball field."

Brian nodded, and their noses brushed together. "Yeah."

* * *

"Everything's so different now."

The two of them were lying on the bleachers behind the baseball field next to the school, Andy on the step above Brian's, facing opposite directions so that they could see one another.

"How?" Brian asked.

Andy shrugged. "My place on the team. Back in high school, I was always the best guy, you know?" He shook his head. "Not anymore."

Brian released a warm breath, momentarily turning the air in front of him a hazy white. "But you're still a good wrestler. One of the best."

Andy sighed, but didn't say anything. His hands were resting on his stomach, and he was staring up at the night sky. It was so dark outside that Brian could barely make out the outlines of his face.

"Part of me kind of wishes I was back in high school," Andy said finally. "Everything was easier back then."

Brian nodded. He wished Andy was back in high school, too. Because then they would be together, and Brian wouldn't feel so alone all the time. "Yeah," he said quietly.

Andy shifted around on the bench and glanced down at Brian. "What about you? Where do you want to go?"

Immediately, Brian could feel himself blushing, and he was grateful for the cloak of darkness. Pretty much all he'd been thinking about all semester was college and applications and essays, probably because his mother brought it up just about every night at dinner. She wanted him to go to one of the state schools, because they'd figured out that pretty much every one of them would give him a decent-sized scholarship, and then they wouldn't have to take out another mortgage on the house to pay for tuition. Secretly, Brian was hoping that Ohio State would offer him something big so that he would have a good excuse to go there. Because there wasn't anywhere else that he wanted to go. The past semester had been hard for Brian without Andy there to lean on, and he knew that if they went to the same school that it would be just like it was before, back in high school when they hung out all the time and relied on one another for everything.

"Mostly the state schools," Brian told him.

"Really?" Andy seemed surprised. "I figured you'd be going to Harvard or something."

"Too expensive," Brian replied. "We're hoping I'll get a scholarship if I go to a public school."

Andy nodded. "That makes sense."

Brian started to say something about Ohio State, but then thought better of it. He'd mention it later, when Andy was more comfortable being back home. He didn't want to overwhelm him on his second day back. "Besides," he said instead, tilting his head back to look at the stars. "I don't think Harvard would want someone who couldn't even make an elephant."

Andy laughed, but it wasn't the same laugh from earlier when they were at Burger King. It was quieter, less boisterous. More like his old laugh from before he left for college. Brian's chest swelled with joy, and he smiled.

"I'm glad you're back," he said impulsively.

Andy was quiet for a minute. Even in the darkness, Brian could see that he wasn't smiling anymore. Brian worried that maybe he'd said the wrong thing, or at least that he'd said it too soon, but then Andy spoke.

"Yeah, me, too," he said quietly.

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**A/N:** I'll try to have the next chapter out soon. Please review!


	2. The Mistake

**A/N: **Thank you for all of the reviews. I really appreciate them: )

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Chapter Two: The Mistake

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Brian woke on Saturday morning to the sound and smell of his mother cooking bacon in the kitchen. He turned over to look at his alarm clock. 8:07. He hadn't gotten back from hanging out with Andy until almost two o'clock in the morning, and he really wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, but he knew that his mother would probably come by soon to wake him up anyway, so he went ahead and got out of bed.

As he changed clothes, he thought back to his time with Andy on the baseball field the night before and how different it felt being with him then than it did when they were eating lunch at Burger King earlier that afternoon. At Burger King, Brian was so nervous that he could hardly remember to eat, but on the baseball field all of that went away. He wasn't sure exactly why, only that it had a lot to do with the way Andy was acting. At Burger King, he'd acted so differently from the person Brian knew back in high school, the one that cried over beating up Larry Lester and worried about becoming like his father. The person sitting across from him at Burger King was still Andy, but there was so much missing or hidden away that Brian almost didn't recognize him.

But on the baseball field, the old Andy came back, and Brian was so relieved. He hoped it was for good. He didn't want Andy to change. In fact, he didn't want anything to change, even though part of him knew that some things already had.

After he finished getting dressed, Brian opened his bedroom door and stepped out into the hallway, where he could already hear his father and his little sister talking in the kitchen. Suddenly, he remembered what he'd done with Andy in his bedroom the night before. What if his parents hadn't been asleep and they'd heard the bed creaking or Brian breathing heavily or Andy moaning? What if Morgan, with nothing but a tiny bathroom separating her bedroom from Brian's, heard the window opening and told their parents about it? Brian felt his stomach curling in on itself like a snail shrinking back into its shell. Oh, god.

Brian took a deep breath and forced himself to keep walking, knowing that he couldn't avoid his parents forever and that if they did know that hiding wouldn't help, especially where his mother was concerned. She had a special skill for sniffing out weakness, and she could usually tell when someone was lying to her. It occurred to him then that maybe that was why he found it so hard to lie to people. He knew he couldn't get away with it anyway, so why bother trying?

When Brian stepped into the dining room, his father looked up, smiling. "Good morning," he said cheerfully.

Immediately, Brian felt his stomach loosen. They didn't know. "Good morning," he replied, returning the smile. He took a seat across the table from his little sister, who was watching him as she ate her pancakes, which were covered in maple syrup.

"Your hair is sticking up," she offered in greeting.

Brian rolled his eyes. "Thank you."

Mrs. Johnson walked in then, holding a plate of pancakes. "I was just about to come wake you," she told her son. "How many do you want?"

"Uh…three, I guess."

Mrs. Johnson scooped up three pancakes with her spatula and deposited them onto Brian's plate. Then she put the plate at the center of the table and sat down next to him. Brian reached for the syrup and started fixing his pancakes.

"I still need to pick up a few gifts for Christine's kids," Mrs. Johnson said, picking up her napkin. "I was going to go over to Macy's later." She looked over at Brian. "Do you want to come with me? I don't know how many gifts you have left to get."

Brian swallowed a bite of pancake. "Actually, um…Andy and I were going to go to the mall today. He still has to pick out some gifts for his family."

Mrs. Johnson frowned. "Is Andy the one you went out with last night?"

Brian's heart leapt into his throat, but then he realized that she was referring to their trip to Burger King in the late afternoon. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, it is."

"He's in college now, isn't he?" asked Mr. Johnson.

Brian nodded. "Yeah. Ohio State."

"So, he's back home for Christmas?"

"Yep, for a whole month."

Mr. Johnson smiled. "I'll bet it's nice to see him again. You two hung out a lot last summer, didn't you?"

Brian nodded stiffly, wishing they could just change the subject. It felt so strange to talk about Andy with his parents, especially after what happened the night before. He felt his face heat up slightly at the memory of the two of them rolling around on his bed, and he cursed himself for it. Could his parents tell how he felt about Andy just by the way he acted when he was talking about him? Could they tell that Andy was more than just a friend? He looked over at mother, but she was too busy pouring orange juice to notice the tint to his cheeks.

"So, what time is he picking you up?"

Brian looked back over at his father. "Um, ten o'clock."

The phone rang, and Mrs. Johnson stood from her chair and put her napkin on the table. "I'll get it."

"Have you bought me a gift yet?" Morgan asked, looking straight at Brian.

Brian scoffed. "I'm not going to tell you."

"I really want Winter Princess Barbie," she said, looking at him seriously. "If Mommy doesn't have it for me, you should get it."

Brian glared at her. "With an attitude like that, maybe I won't get you anything."

Morgan stuffed another piece of pancake into his mouth, and a drop of syrup fell onto the sleeve of her nightshirt. "I already got you something," she told him, still chewing.

"So?" Brian asked.

"So, that means you have to get me something, too."

Brian frowned. "That's not what Christmas means, Morgan."

Morgan shrugged.

Mr. Johnson cleared his throat. "Well, I know what I want for Christmas," he informed them. "Those new Titleist Pro golf balls. Mick Schaeffer down at the clubhouse uses those, and he's lowered his score by an average of ten points since he started using them."

Brian and Morgan stared back at him blankly.

Mr. Johnson smiled sheepishly. "That is, you know, if either of you needed any suggestions about what to get me."

"I don't care what Michael wants, Christine!"

Brian glanced into the kitchen, where he could see his mother standing in the middle of the room with the phone pressed against her ear. Her jaw was clenched in anger, and she was staring at the cabinet above her head as if she couldn't tear her eyes away.

"We decided this three months ago!" she shouted. "You can't start changing things around just because you _feel_ like it!"

Brian glanced over at his father, who looked just as uncomfortable as Brian felt.

"So, what else is new?" Mrs. Johnson shouted into the phone. "You change your mind, and you expect everyone else to change their plans to suit you." She shook her head furiously. "Well, this time, you can forget it. You and Michael and everyone else can have Christmas all by yourself, because we won't be there!" Without waiting for a response, she slammed the phone down onto the cradle and walked back into the dining room.

Mr. Johnson opened his mouth hesitantly. "Catherine…"

"Is everyone finished with these pancakes?" She didn't wait for anyone to respond before she picked up the plate from the center of the table and disappeared into the kitchen again.

Mr. Johnson sighed and put down his fork, then followed his wife into the kitchen. He walked up behind her and put his hand on the small of her back. She flinched, but he leaned in and started speaking to her, so softly that Brian couldn't hear what they were saying. After a few seconds, Mrs. Johnson leaned into the touch and rested her forehead against her husband's shoulder.

Brian looked back at Morgan, who was watching their parents apprehensively. "It's going to be okay," he assured her.

Morgan looked up at him. "Does this mean we aren't having Christmas?" she asked.

Brian shook his head. "No, we will."

"But not with Aunt Christine and Uncle Michael?"

Brian shrugged. "I don't know."

Morgan didn't say anything to this, just went back to her pancakes. Brian took another sip of his orange juice. After a few seconds, Morgan looked up at him again. "Did you really not get me a present?" she asked.

Brian sighed. "I'm going to, Morgan."

"Because I got you something really good, so you have to get me something good, too." She looked her brother straight in the eye. "Winter Princess Barbie is only fifteen dollars at Toyland. I already checked."

Brian rolled his eyes and went back to his pancakes.

* * *

"So, this is your mother's sister?"

Brian nodded and stepped around an elderly couple walking right in the middle of the aisle. "Yeah, my Aunt Christine."

Andy took a long sip from the soda in his hand, then tossed the cup into a nearby garbage can as they passed. The mall was already busy, even though it was only ten thirty. There were only two Saturdays left before Christmas, and it seemed like everyone in Shermer was at the mall buying gifts before everything good disappeared. Andy had already run into one of his old teammates' mothers, along with a couple of his mother's friends from the gym.

"So, do they not get along, or what?" Andy asked.

Brian shrugged. "Not really. My grandma died two years ago, and I remember that they fought a lot when they were making funeral arrangements. They still fight over my grandfather a lot."

"Over your grandfather?" Andy echoed, glancing over at him. "Why?"

"I don't know," Brian replied. "After my grandma died, they argued about where he was going to stay. My aunt wanted him to move in with them, but my mom wanted him to move in with us."

Andy's eyes widened. "What did he do?"

"He told them to stop arguing and mind their own business, and he stayed in his old house."

Andy smiled. "Sounds like my grandfather." He reached up and unbuttoned his letter jacket, letting it fall open to reveal a pale grey, long-sleeved t-shirt. "So, are you guys really not going to have Christmas with them?"

Brian shrugged. "I don't know. My parents didn't tell me anything, but from the way my mother sounded, probably not."

"That sucks," said Andy.

"Yeah."

Andy stopped in front of Toyland, the mall's toy store. There were about a million people inside, and the cashiers already looked frazzled. A large woman carrying three huge bags pushed passed them, nearly knocking Brian over with a huge stuffed teddy bear.

"Wanna go in?" asked Andy. "I have to get my nephew something cool."

"Which one?" asked Brian as they pushed through a large group of people that were standing in line to pay for their things.

"Nicolas," Andy replied. "Todd's oldest. He's five."

"Oh." Todd was Andy's oldest brother, and their father's favorite. He'd gone to college on a full basketball scholarship, and he'd graduated with nearly perfect grades. He and his wife lived in Boston, where Todd taught high school basketball. His team had made it to the state championships in three of the past five seasons, and they were expected to make it there again in the upcoming season.

"What about this?" Brian picked up a large stuffed bear with huge eyes in the shape of eggs.

Andy frowned. "I don't know if he likes stuffed animals anymore."

"Oh." Brian put the bear back down in the display container. "I guess I'm just used to shopping for my sister."

Andy moved towards the back half of the store, where the toys were divided by aisles. He stepped into the first aisle, where the Barbies were located, then turned around so that he could find a different aisle, presumably with more masculine toys. Brian grabbed him by the sleeve.

"Wait, I have to get something for my sister," he told him. "Some kind of winter Barbie."

"Winter Barbie?" Andy asked skeptically. He picked up one of the boxes, with a bikini-clad Barbie wearing sunglasses and carrying a pink and blue beach towel, and gazed at it confusedly, as if he had never seen a Barbie before. It probably wasn't far from the truth. Andy was the youngest of four kids, and only one of them, his older sister Suzie, was a girl. By the time Andy came along, she probably wasn't playing with dolls anymore.

Brian scanned the shelves for Winter Whatever Barbie, but couldn't find it. His sister had specifically told him that the doll would be available at Toyland. Then again, maybe they'd run out. He remembered how worried Morgan had been the year before when she'd asked Santa for a Cabbage Patch doll and then they'd found out that almost every store was sold out. Luckily, their mother was very on top of things, and she'd purchased the doll in October, before the rush.

"Is this it?"

Brian looked over to see that Andy was holding up a pale blue box with the words "Winter Princess Barbie" written across the top in sparkly, cursive letters.

"Yeah, that's it!" Brian exclaimed, accepting the box gratefully. "I'm glad they had one left."

"They have three of them on the bottom shelf, right next to--OW!" Andy bent over, clutching his ankle. There was a large toy car sitting on the ground right next to his foot.

"Sorry!" A young boy, probably nine or ten years old, was standing at the end of the aisle, holding a remote control in his hand. He flicked a switch, and the car took off back down the aisle. It disappeared around the corner, and the boy followed it.

"Are you okay?" asked Brian, looking down at Andy, who wasn't paying attention to his ankle anymore, but was staring down the aisle, where the boy had been standing.

"Do you think Nicolas would like a remote control car?" he asked, walking down the aisle after the boy.

Brian shrugged and followed him. "I don't know. Do you think he would?" The two of them turned the corner, and Andy glanced down the aisles, looking for the toy cars.

"Maybe," Andy replied. He found the aisle he was looking for and started pushing past people so that he could see what was available. There was one shelf lined with about six different sample cars with remote controls. Andy grabbed a big red truck with wheels the size of his hand and set it on the floor. He flipped the switch on the remote control, then pushed the joystick forward. The truck started down the aisle and ran into a shelf of Matchbox cars, sending a couple of packages tumbling onto the floor. Andy laughed.

"You get one," he told Brian. "We'll race."

Brian let out a nervous laugh and glanced down the aisle, where a couple of women were frowning in Andy's direction. "Um, are you sure we're allowed to do that?"

"Sure, why not?" Andy responded easily. "Why else would they have samples?"

"I don't know." Brian watched the truck skitter down the aisle again, this time ramming into a display of G.I. Joes.

"Come on," said Andy. "Get the black Mustang. I'll bet that one goes really fast."

Brian sighed and picked up the black sports car that was sitting next to the empty spot where Andy's truck had been sitting. The remote control looked similar to the one that he used for his video game console, so it didn't take long for him to figure out how to use it. He stuffed his sister's Barbie under one arm and set the car on the floor.

"Okay, let's start at the same place," said Andy. He backed his truck up until it was a couple of feet in front of them. "First to get past the display of teddy bears wins, okay?"

"Wins what?" asked Brian. "Is this a bet?"

Andy rolled his eyes. "No, just…" He shook his head. "On three, okay?"

Brian nodded. The women on the other end of the aisle were still eying them suspiciously.

"One, two…three!"

Brian pushed forward on the joystick, and his car shot forward. Andy was right; it was really fast. It sped past the women at the end of the aisle, quickly overtaking Andy's truck. He heard Andy curse under his breath, but then he was laughing again as Brian's car hit a bump on the floor and flipped over, landing in someone's empty shopping basket.

Brian ran over and picked his car up out of the basket. "Sorry," he muttered. The customer, a middle-aged man, chuckled and turned back to his wife, who was looking at board games.

"I win!" Andy exclaimed as Brian walked back down the aisle to where he was standing.

Brian rolled his eyes, but he couldn't keep his mouth from curling into a smile. Andy was grinning widely, face flushed with excitement like a little boy, and Brian felt his insides tighten up with emotion. He stood there for a long moment, watching Andy play with his bright red truck.

"I think he'll like this, don't you?" he asked, not even looking up from the floor.

Brian nodded. "Yeah, it's really fun."

"Which one should I get? Yours was cool."

Brian walked back over to the display of remote control cars. "There's also a red Porsche over here…and an Army tank."

"I think I like the sports cars," Andy called out over his shoulder, still occupied with his truck.

Brian picked up one of the black Mustangs that was still in its box, then walked back over to where Andy was standing. Brian came up behind Andy just as a couple of kids brushed past him, forcing him over. He pressed himself against Andy's side and put his hand against the small of Andy's back to let him know that he was there. "I got the Mustang. It's--"

He didn't get to finish the sentence. Andy pulled away as though he'd been burned, and Brian's hand fell away from his lower back. Andy turned back to look at him, expression angry and panicked. Immediately, Brian felt his face heat up.

"Sorry," he said quietly. "I didn't--"

Andy grabbed the box from Brian's hand. "Yeah, I think he'll like the Mustang," he said shortly, his tone clipped and professional, like he was talking to a business partner instead of his friend.

Brian nodded stiffly, confused. "Yeah, I'm sure he will."

Andy nodded and tucked the car under his arm, then reached into his back pocket for his wallet. "I'm going to go pay for this." Without waiting for Brian to respond, he walked down the aisle towards the check out line.

Brian stared after him for a moment, then looked down at the box in his hand. Barbie was staring back at him, her plastic smile frozen onto her face, her unblinking eyes watching him closely to see what he was going to do next. Brian sighed and let the box fall to his side, then followed Andy to the register.

* * *

The rest of the morning went by rather awkwardly. They went to Dillard's so that Andy could buy his mom a bracelet, then to the sporting goods store so that Brian could find those golf balls his dad wanted. They didn't talk much, or at least Brian didn't. Andy seemed to have recovered from the incident at the toy store, but Brian was having a hard time processing what had happened. Had he done something wrong? He hadn't meant to touch him like that. Things had just been going so well that morning and the night before, and Brian had felt so comfortable with him, playing with the toy cars and talking about their families. It felt natural to touch Andy the way he had, and even though he probably shouldn't have done it in public, Brian still wasn't sure what he'd done wrong.

But maybe Andy had decided that he didn't want him anymore, at least not in that way. Sure, they'd made out in his bed, but they hadn't done anything since. Even on the baseball field, all they'd done was talk. Maybe what happened in his bedroom was an accident or a mistake. Maybe Andy had changed his mind and regretted kissing him, both the night before and all those months ago before Andy left for college. Brian felt sick to his stomach thinking of himself as nothing more than one of Andy's mistakes, but he couldn't stop thinking about it.

At about twelve thirty that afternoon, Andy pulled up to the curb in front of Brian's house and put the Bronco in 'Park'. Brian started to open the door and make a quick exit, but then Andy cleared his throat and said, "So, maybe we can hang out tonight."

Brian looked over at him, brow furrowed in confusion. "Hang out?"

Andy nodded, and Brian thought that he looked a little bit uncomfortable. "Yeah. Maybe we can go out to the baseball fields." He paused. "We can stop and get some beers or something."

Brian frowned, but didn't ask for further clarification. "Um, yeah, sure. That sounds good."

Andy nodded, looking slightly relieved. "Okay, cool. I'll pick you up at ten thirty?"

Brian managed a brief nod. "Ten thirty. Sure."

Andy smiled awkwardly. "See you then."

* * *

At ten twenty-five that night, Brian was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, counting down to ten thirty. All day, he'd thought about Andy, trying to figure out what he wanted from him. Were they going to go to the baseball fields and hang out as friends, like they used to last summer, or did Andy want to do other things? His reaction at the toy store suggested that he didn't want to do any of that stuff anymore, but then there was that nervousness in his eyes and in his voice when he'd dropped him off that afternoon, and Brian had no idea what to expect.

At ten twenty-nine, Brian pushed open his window as carefully as he could and dropped down onto the hard, dry soil of his father's vegetable garden. When he walked out to the front yard, he saw that Andy was already waiting for him by the curb. Brian opened the door to the Bronco and slipped into the passenger seat.

"Hey," said Brian.

Andy nodded stiffly. "Hey." He motioned to the floor beneath Brian's seat, where he'd stashed an unopened six-pack of Budweisers. "I stopped before I came."

"Oh…good."

The ride to the fields was silent, except for the radio, which was tuned to some rock station that seemed completely out of place, given the circumstances. Brian tried to keep his eyes on the road or the dashboard, but he couldn't keep from sneaking a few furtive glances at Andy's hands, which were drumming lightly against the steering wheel.

When they arrived at the field, Andy locked the Bronco and Brian took the beers. They walked out to the bleachers, where Brian set the six-pack on the second row from the bottom. He looked up to see Andy watching him from a few feet away.

"You can have one," he said quietly.

Brian glanced down at the beers, then back up at Andy's face. "That's okay, I don't want any."

Andy paused, taking it in. "Yeah, me neither," he said finally.

Neither of them said anything for a few seconds. Then Andy stepped forward, closing the space between them. Brian swallowed the lump of confusion that had been lodged in his throat since that horrible moment in the toy store, but it didn't go away, even when Andy reached forward to push his fingers through Brian's hair and bring their mouths together.

There were a million questions that Brian wanted to ask Andy, maybe more. Questions about what was happening between them and what Andy wanted and where Brian was or wasn't allowed to touch him in public or when they were alone. So many questions, but Andy's mouth was covering his, and Andy's hands were pressed against his chest and neck, and Andy's scent was in his nostrils, and Brian didn't have the guts to say a single word.

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**A/N:** Thank you for reading. Please drop me a line if you read this.


	3. The Interruption

**A/N: **Thank you for all of the reviews!

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Chapter Three: The Interruption

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On Thursday morning, five days after his trip to the mall and four days before Christmas, Brian woke up early to go jogging.

He'd started jogging sometime at the beginning of the semester, not long after Andy left for college. After adopting some of Andy's eating habits, he realized that he'd gained a few pounds, and he figured that it was probably unhealthy to eat like a horse if he didn't work some kind of physical activity into his schedule. So, he started jogging.

The first time he attempted to go out for a jog, he quit after about three minutes. He made it to the park about a block and a half away, then collapsed onto the merry-go-round, completely out of breath. The next time went better, and so did the time after that. After about a month or so, he'd worked himself up to jogging for about thirty minutes at a time, three days a week. It wasn't much, but he felt better for doing it, and he noticed after a while that his legs didn't look so skinny anymore. Not that they were muscular or anything--he was pretty sure that he'd never reach a point in his life where _anyone_ would consider _any_ part of his body muscular--but he didn't feel so much like a gawky teenager anymore, and that was a nice feeling.

But even more important than the physical benefits was the idea that maybe Andy would be proud of him if he knew that Brian was exercising. It was a silly thought, and Brian was embarrassed for thinking about it, but he couldn't help himself. He would imagine Andy in Ohio, getting up early to go on a run, and it made him smile to think that maybe they were doing the exact same thing at the exact same moment. Sometimes he would even imagine them running together, making no noise except for the repeated sound of their feet hitting the icy ground. Another dumb idea, but somehow it made him feel connected to Andy at times when he would have done anything to be close to him again.

On Thursday morning, Brian slipped on a pair of sweatpants and a matching hooded jacket, then stepped out into the cold December air. It had rained just a little bit the night before, and the sidewalks were slick with ice. Brian did his best to run around them, but every once in a while he would hit a patch of ice and his feet would slip out from underneath him. He cursed his ratty old sneakers, with the worn-out soles that did nothing to grip the ground when he ran.

As he ran, he thought about Andy, of course. What else was he going to think about? After a week of hanging out and making out, he wasn't any closer to figuring out what was happening between them. In fact, if anything, it was even more complicated. He'd been waiting for Andy to come back all semester, but now that he had, Brian was realizing how different their relationship was from what it had been in those months after detention. Part of that, obviously, was due to the fact that they were making out on a very regular basis, but there was other stuff, too. Andy was so different. Sometimes he would be the same person he knew from before, kind and funny and intense. But then he would say something or do something that Brian knew for a fact he would never have said or done before he left for college. It was subtle things, usually. Making fun of a stranger's clothes, getting impatient with the cashier at a store or restaurant, listening to loud music with the windows rolled down as he drove through residential neighborhoods. Brian couldn't really put his finger on what was going with Andy, but he thought that it probably had something to do with showing people that he didn't care what they thought about him. Doing what he wanted and saying what he wanted and taking what he wanted, whether other people liked it or not.

Except when it came to Brian, which was the confusing part. Whenever they were together in public, everything was fine as long as Brian didn't try to touch him or say something to him that might alert the people around them to the fact that they were more than friends. Brian understood that, he really did. He didn't want people to know what was happening between them either, especially when he wasn't quite sure himself. They could do things in private where no one could see them, and that was just fine with him, as long as it didn't stop altogether.

But even when they were alone, things were still complicated. Apparently Andy had these rules about what they could or couldn't do and when they could or couldn't do it. The only problem was that he hadn't seen fit to share any them with Brian, at least not verbally. A couple of days previous, Andy had come over to the house to play video games. They were talking and laughing, completely comfortable, and then Brian reached over and put a hand on the inside of Andy's thigh. Andy had jumped, and Brian had quickly pulled his hand away, knowing that something was wrong. Andy didn't make a big deal of it and had continued talking as though nothing had happened, but Brian knew that something had, mostly because something similar happened the next day. Andy had come over to watch a video, and when he got ready to leave, Brian leaned forward to kiss him goodbye. Even though no one else was around, Andy looked kind of shocked, like he was wondering what on earth Brian was doing. It was almost like, while they were doing "friend" things, he had forgotten what the two of them did on the baseball fields when everyone else was asleep. Like he'd forgotten that he'd had his tongue jammed down Brian's throat the night before.

Despite his confusion, Brian didn't say anything to Andy about any of this. Part of it was that he didn't know what he would say if he did, but a much bigger part was that he was afraid of pushing Andy away. He'd spent nearly four months thinking about Andy--dreaming about him, obsessing over him, lusting after him--and to have him there, in the flesh, touching and kissing him like he wanted Brian just as much as Brian wanted him, was almost too good to be true. It didn't matter that they didn't talk about it. Confusion was better than loneliness, and he didn't want to be lonely anymore. He'd spent four months being lonely, and he didn't want to go back down that road.

With his thoughts to keep him occupied, Brian stayed out a little bit longer than usual, making a couple of extra laps around the park. He arrived back at the house, cold and sweating, at about seven thirty, just as his mom was leaving for work.

"She's asleep in our bed," Mrs. Johnson informed him as soon as he walked through the front door. She was wearing a teal print dress and black heels, and she was clipping on a pair of large silver earrings. "I think she had trouble sleeping last night, so she might stay in bed for a while."

Brian nodded. Morgan was still young enough to sleep in their parents' bed sometimes, especially in the mornings while they got ready for work. Their father would pick her up out of bed and carry her into their bedroom, half asleep and barely coherent. Then she would snuggle under the covers, clutching the pillow she slept with every night, and watch their mother put on her makeup and do her hair. Brian thought that she was actually kind of sweet in the morning, when she had sleep in her eyes and she was too drowsy to make annoying conversation.

"And I bought some new lunch meat if you want to make sandwiches for lunch," said Mrs. Johnson, reaching for her purse, which was sitting on the kitchen counter. "There's also some leftover roast from last night."

Brian nodded. "Okay."

She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Have a good day."

"You, too."

Mrs. Johnson threw her purse over one shoulder and grabbed her keys from the counter. She was almost out the door when Brian suddenly blurted, "Have you talked to Aunt Christine?"

She looked up, frowning. "What?"

Brian swallowed nervously. "Nothing, I was just…I was just wondering if you'd talked to her. You know, about Christmas."

His mother's expression flickered. "No," she said shortly.

Brian nodded quickly. "Okay. I was just wondering."

Mrs. Johnson paused for a moment as though she wanted to say something else, then looked away and adjusted her purse strap, pulling it closer to her body. "I'll see you at four," she told him.

Brian nodded. "Okay," he said quietly.

Without saying anything else, Mrs. Johnson stepped out onto the front porch and shut the door behind her. Brian let out a deep sigh, then went to check on his sister.

* * *

That afternoon, Morgan decided that she was tired of being cooped up in the house, and she left to eat lunch with her friend Ashley, who lived right across the street. Brian started to make himself a sandwich, then thought better of it and called Andy to see if he wanted to go to Burger King.

When they arrived, it was lunchtime, so the restaurant was crowded. The two of them grabbed the last open booth and started in on their food.

"So, where is your sister?" Andy asked, opening the wrapper of his cheeseburger.

"At a friend's house," Brian responded. "She'll probably be over there all afternoon. We could go watch a movie or something, if you wanted."

Andy nodded and took a bite of his burger. Brian started unwrapping his burger, then removed his gum and stuck it on a spare napkin.

"How does it feel not to have braces anymore?"

Brian looked up. "Oh, uh…" He smiled. "It's really nice. I had them removed about a month ago maybe? It's been kind of weird getting used to it, you know? Sometimes I run my tongue over my teeth…" He opened his mouth wide to demonstrate, and Andy laughed. "…and it feels like there should be something there, but there isn't."

Andy smiled. "It looks good."

Brian paused uncertainly, wondering if he'd heard him wrong. "It does?"

Andy nodded. "Yeah, you look…" He paused awkwardly, then cleared his throat. "Your teeth look good without them."

Brian could feel himself blushing. "Thanks."

Andy nodded stiffly and took a drink from his soda. "So, uh, what about Christmas? What's going on with your mom's family?"

Brian sighed. "I don't know. My mom and her sister, they had that fight last week, remember?"

Andy nodded. "Sure."

Brian nodded. "Well, I think it had something to do with my aunt wanting to have Christmas over at her house instead of ours. I don't know why, but she does. Anyway, my mom got really mad. She says that Christine is always expecting everyone else to switch their plans around just so it will be more convenient for her." He paused. "Or something."

Andy frowned. "So, because of that, you guys just won't see them for Christmas?"

Brian shrugged. "I guess not," he said glumly.

"That seems kind of…extreme."

"I don't know," Brian responded. "They've never really gotten along very well, especially since my grandmother died. It seems like this happens at every holiday."

"Really?" Andy chuckled. "That sounds like my family then. My dad and my aunt Maggie are always fighting. Sometimes I wonder why they even bother."

Brian sighed. "Family."

Andy scoffed. "Yeah."

Brian was quiet for a minute, watching him eat. Finally, he said, "So, how's it been with your dad?"

Andy looked up quickly, his eyes betraying his surprise and his jaw betraying his answer. "It's been fine," he said shortly.

Brian nodded slowly. "Have you two talked at all?"

Andy shrugged. "Not really."

Andy's tone suggested that he really didn't want to talk about his father, at least not yet. Brian knew that he probably would eventually, but that it usually took him a while to get to a point where he was comfortable discussing whatever was bothering him. Andy didn't offer up much information about his problems unless he was pressured into it, but Brian had never been very good at pressuring anyone to do anything. He supposed that the only reason Andy told him anything was that he trusted him, for whatever reason.

Brian picked up his hamburger again and took another bite. Neither of them said anything for a few minutes.

Suddenly, Brian felt his and Andy's knees brush against one another under the table, and a jolt of electricity went through his leg. Quickly, he pulled his leg away so that they weren't touching anymore. He knew that Andy wasn't comfortable with Brian touching him in public, and he didn't want him to react the same way he had in the toy store when they were Christmas shopping.

But he had no sooner moved his leg when he felt Andy's knee pressing against his again. Brian glanced up, but Andy was staring at the milkshake in his hand and not at Brian. Even so, Brian felt Andy press his knee harder against Brian's, so hard that it had to be deliberate. Brian felt a strain of lust coil itself around his stomach, though he really couldn't say why. It was just their knees, but somehow that didn't matter. It was Andy's knee, and they were sitting in the middle of a crowded fast food restaurant, and Brian couldn't focus on a goddamn thing.

Suddenly, Andy looked up at him, and their eyes locked together. Brian realized that his breathing had grown irregular and that he was practically panting.

"You want to get out of here?" Andy asked quietly, and Brian nodded, too busy trying not to hyperventilate to say anything.

The ride back to Brian's house was silent. Neither of them tried to touch the other, but Brian could feel the tension in the air, louder than anything they could have said. When they arrived back at his house, he climbed out of Andy's Bronco, landing in the grass with shaky feet. He spotted Morgan across the street, playing hopscotch on the driveway with her friend, and he waved at her, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Is that your sister?" Andy asked, squinting into the sun.

Brian nodded and fumbled with his house keys. "Yeah."

"Is anyone else home?"

Brian shook his head and pushed open the door. "No, both of my parents are at work. My mom won't be home until nearly four." He led Andy into the house, then closed the door behind him.

As soon as the door was closed, Andy grabbed Brian by the collar of his sweater and slammed him against the wall. Before Brian could say or do anything, Andy was pressed up against him, kissing him roughly. Even though part of him was expecting it, Brian was so surprised that he hardly knew what to do, but he didn't try and push him away. Instead, he surrendered to the kiss and returned it with just as much feeling as Andy was giving it.

After a few seconds, Andy released Brian's collar, and both of them broke away. They stared at one another for a short second, both breathing heavily, before Brian grabbed Andy by the sleeve and pulled him down the hall to his bedroom.

Brian shut the door behind them, and Andy grabbed Brian by the waist, pulling him in for another kiss. Andy took a step forward, and Brian felt the back of his knees hit the edge of his mattress. Another small push and both of them tumbled down onto the bed together, Andy on top. He leaned forward and brought their faces together, forcing Brian's lips open with his own.

After a moment, Brian wrapped his arms around Andy's back and flipped them over so that he was on top. His legs fell open, and Andy nudged one of his knees into the gap, pressing his denim-clad thigh against Brian's crotch. Brian let out a loud, sudden moan, which was quickly muffled by Andy's mouth. Andy's hands were at Brian's waist, fingers skimming Brian's belt buckle, pushing Brian's t-shirt up so that he could press his cold hands against his warm stomach. Brian felt a shiver go down his spine.

And then Andy wasn't just pushing Brian's shirt up, he was taking it _off_. Brian was so stunned that he stopped kissing Andy for a few seconds, which only gave Andy better access. He yanked the shirt up to Brian's armpits, and Brian had no choice but to help him slip it off. Andy tossed the shirt onto the floor and turned back to kiss him again. His knee was still pressed against Brian's groin, denim against denim, and Brian was finding it harder and harder to catch his breath. Another kiss, hard and desperate, Andy's thumbs pressing against his abdomen and--

"Brian!"

Brian froze, his face hovering just inches above Andy's. Andy's eyes were wide with fear, just like Brian's probably were.

"Brian!" Morgan called out again. He heard the front door slam, and then someone giggling.

"Shit!" Brian muttered, climbing off of the bed and grabbing his shirt from the floor. "I'm here!" he shouted, tugging it over his head. He looked back at Andy, who had jumped up from the bed and was straightening his collar, raking his hand through his tousled hair. They exchanged brief glances before the bedroom door burst open.

"What are you doing?" Morgan asked. Her friend Ashley was standing behind her, glancing back and forth between the two boys. Brian felt like he'd just swallowed his own heart.

"Nothing!" he exclaimed, the words coming out louder and squeakier than he'd intended. "We were just…" He let out a shaky breath. "Just…"

"…about to play video games," Andy finished for him.

Brian let out a relieved breath. "Yeah, video games."

Morgan didn't react to that. "Ashley's going to play over here," she informed him.

Brian nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, yeah, no problem. Have fun."

Morgan frowned doubtfully, then shut the door behind her.

Neither of them said anything for a long time. Brian could hear his sister and her friend talking in the next room over, but the only other sound was coming from his own heart, beating so loudly that he was pretty sure Andy could hear it. He looked over to see that Andy was staring at the doorway, trying to get his own breathing under control. When he realized that Brian was watching him, he glanced over at him. They stared at one another for a long moment, both of them silent.

"I guess I should go," Andy said finally.

Brian nodded, disappointed. "Yeah, okay."

Brian walked him back to the front door. Andy pulled out his keys and flipped through them slowly, searching for the right one.

"I'll see you later," said Brian, forcing himself to sound casual.

Andy nodded, but didn't look up. The key to his car was pinched between his thumb and index finger, but for some reason he was still fumbling with the others. "See you," he said distractedly, stepping out onto the front porch.

Brian watched Andy's Bronco until it turned the corner at the end of the street and disappeared from his sight. When it was gone, he let out a deep breath and turned to shut the door.

Before he could close it all the way, Morgan came running in from the hallway, with Ashley at her heels. "Bye!" she shouted.

Brian frowned and stepped out of her way. "Bye?" he echoed.

"We're going back to Ashley's house!" she called over her shoulder. Before Brian could answer, she stepped out onto the front porch and slammed the door behind her.

When she was gone, Brian leaned back against the wall, the exact same spot that Andy had pushed him up against not five minutes before. He could still feel Andy's hands at his waist, tugging his t-shirt up over his head, skimming his fingers over his belt buckle. If Morgan hadn't come back, if they hadn't been interrupted…

Brian let out a frustrated sigh and went into the living room to watch television.

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A/N: Please review. Thank you. : )**


	4. The Difference

**A/N:** This chapter is a bit shorter than the others, but the next one will be longer.

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**Chapter Four: The Difference**

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Brian's parents didn't spend a lot of money eating out, but Fridays were the exception, because Friday night was pizza night at the Johnson house. The four of them had a ritual, and each one had a role to play. Right before he left work, Brian's father would call the house to let them know that he was coming home, and then Brian would call the pizza place. Morgan would set the table, and their mother would pay the delivery boy when he dropped off the pizza. By the time Mr. Johnson got home, everything was ready to go. 

On the Friday four days before Christmas, the family sat down in front of a large pizza, half cheese and half pepperoni with olives and tomatoes.

"Joe Williamson got fired today," Mr. Johnson announced as he reached for a slice of pepperoni.

"Who is Joe William?" asked Morgan, mouth full of cheese pizza.

"Joe _Williamson_," he corrected her. "He's one of the accountants in my office."

Morgan swallowed her pizza. "The cheese tastes funny tonight."

"No, it doesn't," said Brian, who was also eating from the cheese half of the pizza. "It tastes the same as it always does."

"It tastes rubbery," said Morgan.

Mr. Johnson cleared his throat. "Anyway, I just thought everyone would like to know how my day went," he said sullenly.

Morgan reached over to pat her father's hand. "I do, Daddy."

Mr. Johnson sighed. "Thank you, sweetheart. I appreciate that."

Morgan nodded and went back to picking the cheese off of her pizza.

Mrs. Johnson, who had been strangely quiet since they had sat down, cleared her throat. "I talked to Christine this afternoon," she announced.

Everyone stopped eating and looked up.

"What did she say?" asked Mr. Johnson.

Mrs. Johnson picked up her slice of pizza. "We didn't talk for very long," she said cryptically.

"Did you talk to her about Christmas?" Brian asked quietly.

His mother's eyes flickered up to meet his, then back down at her pizza. "Yes, I did." She paused. "We're going to go over to her house on Christmas Eve for dinner…if we want to."

Mr. Johnson looked concerned. "Catherine, I--"

"Does that mean we get more presents?" Morgan interrupted.

"Morgan, be quiet," Brian told her.

Mrs. Johnson looked over at her daughter. "Yes, that means you get more presents."

"Then I want to go," said Morgan.

Brian rolled his eyes.

Mrs. Johnson looked over at her husband. "It was my decision," she said firmly. "I don't want my father to have to choose sides. Not at Christmas."

Mr. Johnson hesitated, then nodded. He reached over to cover his wife's hand with his own.

"Wait," Morgan said suddenly. "Are we spending the night over there?"

Mrs. Johnson shook her head. "No, we'll come home that night. On Christmas morning, you'll be able to see what Santa brought you."

Morgan paused, glancing back and forth between her parents. There was a long moment of silence before she blurted, "No, he won't!"

Mrs. Johnson frowned. "What do you mean? Of course he will. He always does."

Morgan huffed angrily, and a little burst of air escaped through her flared nostrils. "Matthew told me the truth."

"Who is Matthew?" her father asked.

"A boy at school. He told me it isn't real."

Mrs. Johnson paused. "Told you that what isn't real, Morgan?"

Morgan suddenly looked over at Brian, glaring at him accusingly. "Santa isn't real!"

* * *

"So, what did you tell her?" asked Andy, eyes wide.

Brian shrugged. "The truth. I mean, she already knew anyway. What were we supposed to do, lie about it?"

Andy paused. "I don't know. I guess not." He glanced back at the road in front of him, pulling up to a stop sign. "Is she upset?"

Brian nodded. "Kind of. She's mad at us for lying to her. I think she thought that boy was lying to her, and when we told her the truth, it just kind of hit her, you know?"

Andy snuck a glance over at Brian. "How old were you when you found out he wasn't real?"

Brian felt himself blushing. "Um, nine."

Andy's eyes widened. "Nine?" he echoed. "That's a long time!"

Brian released an embarrassed sigh. "Yeah, I know. I guess I just wasn't very smart when I was younger." He paused, glancing over at Andy. "How old were you?"

"Four."

It was Brian's turn to be surprised. "Four?" he exclaimed. "How did you find out?"

Andy scoffed. "Brett told me," he answered, referring to his older brother, who Brian knew was four years older than Andy.

Brian frowned. "That's mean. What did you do? Did you cry?"

Andy shook his head. "No, I didn't cry. He would have beaten me up." He looked over at Brian. "Why, did you cry?"

Brian could feel his cheeks growing warm. "No," he lied.

Andy grinned and looked back at the road.

Brian huffed loudly. "So, where is Brett? Is he already over at your house?"

Andy shook his head. "He lives in Evanston, so he'll probably just come in on Christmas Eve."

"Who's there right now?" Brian asked.

Andy sighed. "Suzie and her husband arrived this morning, and Todd's family drove in from Boston last night."

"Are your parents going to mind that I'm coming over? Because I don't want to intrude or anything…"

Andy shook his head. "They won't care."

Brian nodded. "Okay."

Andy pulled up to a stoplight right in front of the entrance to his neighborhood, and Brian looked out of the passenger side window, where he saw two teenage girls standing on the corner waiting for the bus. Both of them had long, dark hair, and both of them were very pretty. One was wearing a denim mini skirt with thick purple tights, a matching purple sweater and a pair of dangly earrings. The other girl was wearing a long leather skirt with a red sweater and a black scarf. They looked like they were probably in high school, maybe college.

Brian looked over at Andy, who was staring at the light, waiting for it to change. "Hey, Andy?"

Andy glanced over. "Yeah?"

Brian nodded over at the girls. "Do you, uh, do you see those girls?"

Andy looked over Brian's shoulder, then back at Brian. "Yeah, why?"

Brian hesitated. "Do you think they're pretty?" he asked, feeling his cheeks burning before Andy had even had time to answer.

But Andy didn't seem disturbed by the question. "Yeah, I guess. Why?"

Brian swallowed. "I don't know. I was just wondering." He paused uncertainly, then: "Do they look like the girls you dated back in Ohio?"

Andy narrowed his eyes in confusion. "What?"

Brian took a deep breath. "Nothing, I was just wondering," he said again, blushing even deeper.

Andy frowned, but Brian couldn't tell if he was confused by why Brian was asking such strange questions or if he was uncomfortable answering them. "I don't know," he said finally, turning back to check on the traffic light. "They're not really my type."

Just then, the light turned green, and Andy released his foot from the brake, edging the Bronco out into the intersection. Brian glanced back at the girls one final time, then faced forward again. The girls were definitely pretty, so pretty that they probably wouldn't give Brian a second glance, even though they'd be all over Andy in an instant. But Andy said they weren't his type. What did that mean, exactly? What type was Andy referring to? Tall? Brunette? High maintenance? Female?

Brian didn't have too long to think about it, because within about a minute, they were pulling up in front of Andy's house, where there were already three other cars parked in the driveway and along the curb. Andy picked an empty spot next to the mailbox and cut the engine.

Brian was expecting a huge crowd of people, but when they got inside, he found that the house was empty. "Where is everyone?" he asked Andy.

Andy frowned. "I don't know. They were here when I left." He walked into the living room, where someone had spilled an entire container of Legos onto the floor. "I guess they--"

"Hello?" someone called out from the kitchen.

Andy sighed, and Brian followed him into the kitchen. There was a woman standing at the stove stirring a pot of spaghetti sauce. She looked a lot like Andy, with light brown hair and similar facial features, but she was a couple of inches taller. She was also very, very pregnant.

"Where did everybody go?" Andy asked her.

"Mom wanted to go look at Christmas lights, so they took Todd's minivan." She glanced over at Brian and held out her hand. "Hi, I'm Susanna."

Brian reached out to shake her hand. "Hi, I'm Brian."

Susanna smiled. "It's nice to meet you, Brian." She looked over at Andy, eyebrow lifted expectantly. "Aren't you supposed to be the one that does that?"

Andy rolled his eyes. "Suzie, this is Brian. Brian, this is my sister, Suzie."

Susanna smirked. "You want to taste the sauce?"

Andy shrugged. "I don't know. Is it any good?"

Susanna reached forward, but instead of hitting him like Brian thought she was going to, she gently patted his cheek. "Get a spoon," she told him.

Andy grabbed a spoon from the drawer next to his hip, and Susanna poured some sauce into it. "Do you want to try it?" she asked Brian.

Brian nodded. "Sure."

Susanna nudged Andy with her elbow. "Let him try it."

Andy handed Brian his spoon, and Susanna let out a frustrated breath. "Get him a new spoon," she told her brother. "I'm sure he doesn't want your spit in his mouth."

Brian felt his cheeks flame with embarrassment. Andy reached into the drawer to get him another spoon, but when he handed it to him, he couldn't meet Brian's eyes.

"Does it need more salt?" Susanna asked, glancing between the two boys.

Brian shook his head. "It's really good."

Andy nodded. "Yeah, it is."

Susanna beamed. "Thank you." She collected the spoons from both of them. "The others should be back soon. We'll probably eat then."

Andy nodded. "We're going to play basketball."

Susanna picked up her spoon and started stirring the sauce again. "Have fun."

Andy and Brian went through the side door next to the kitchen, which led to the driveway. Andy grabbed a basketball from the garage and dribbled it a couple of times to check the air pressure. "I think this one's good," he said.

Brian nodded, and Andy tossed him the ball to check. Brian passed it back, and they started playing.

Brian hadn't played basketball in months, not since the summer before Andy left for college, but he found that he didn't have any trouble getting into the game. It probably had something to do with the fact that he'd been exercising, even though it wasn't much. It must have made some kind of difference, though, because even Andy noticed.

"You're doing good," he told him after they'd been playing for about ten minutes.

Brian felt his stomach flutter pleasantly. "Thanks."

"You been practicing?" asked Andy, reaching up to block a shot. He missed, and the ball went in. Andy picked it up and bounced it a couple of times.

Brian shook his head. "No. I haven't played since you left."

Andy cocked an eyebrow, but didn't say anything to that. "Well, I guess I won't have to go easy on you anymore," he said.

Brian scoffed. "Yeah, right."

Andy grinned and faked to his left, charging the basket for an easy lay-up.

The game was a casual one, like it always was. Andy didn't dominate the court the way Brian knew he probably could, instead giving Brian a chance to take shots. They didn't keep score, or at least not out loud. Brian kept the score straight in his head, just because he couldn't help himself.

"Hey!" Andy exclaimed when Brian made a difficult jump shot from behind the 3-point line.

Brian grinned. "Getting scared?"

Andy rolled his eyes, but Brian could tell that he was trying not to smile. "Not exactly," he retorted.

Just then, a pair of headlights flashed at the end of the driveway. Brian looked up to see a maroon minivan pull in. The side door rolled open, and a little boy jumped out. "Uncle Andy!" he shouted. "I saw a giant snowman!"

Andy laughed. "That's great!" he shouted back. To Brian, he said, "That's Nicolas, Todd's son."

Brian nodded. The driver's side door opened, and more people started spilling out of the van. Brian recognized a couple of them from pictures in Andy's room. The driver was Todd, Andy's oldest brother. Andy's mother climbed out of the front passenger seat, and her husband appeared from the back, holding a little girl in his arms. Todd's wife Stephanie came out next, taking the little girl from her father-in-law. Finally, a younger man stepped out of the back seat and slid the door closed.

"Who is that?" Brian whispered.

"That's John, Suzie's husband," Andy told him. "And Todd's daughter, Emma."

Mrs. Clark looked down the driveway, squinting in the darkness. "We missed you, honey!" she called out from the end of the driveway.

Andy rolled his eyes and waved at his mother. "Hi, mom."

"Hello, Brian!" she shouted, waving in Brian's direction. "How are you, honey?"

Brian laughed. "I'm fine, Mrs. Clark!"

The older woman waved again and disappeared down the walkway in front of the house. John and Todd followed her, with Emma and Nicolas clinging to both of Todd's legs. He reached down to pick up his daughter, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder.

Andy's father watched his family go inside, then started walking down the driveway to where Brian and Andy were standing. Immediately, Andy turned back towards the basket and started dribbling the ball between his legs.

"Hello, Brian. It's nice to see you again."

Brian nodded politely. "Hello, Mr. Clark."

Mr. Clark looked over at his son. "You two having fun?" he asked.

When Andy didn't answer, Brian jumped in. "Yeah, we're just playing, uh, some one-on-one."

Mr. Clark nodded and looked back at Brian. "Well, stay warm. The temperature's going to drop this evening. It's going to get chilly."

Brian nodded. "We will, sir."

Mr. Clark started towards the side door, then stopped and turned around. "Oh, and Andrew?"

Andy stopped dribbling and glanced over at his father. "Yeah?"

"Before you come in, pull the trashcans down to the end of the driveway so the garbage man can get them tomorrow morning."

Andy didn't even skip a beat. "Why can't you get someone else to do it?" He looked up, arching his eyebrow in challenge. "Like Todd."

Mr. Clark paused. "Todd doesn't live here anymore, Andrew. Todd has his own garbage to worry about back home."

Andy shrugged dismissively. "I don't live here anymore either," he pointed out.

Mr. Clark looked a bit stunned, but not so stunned that it suggested that it was the first time Andy had mouthed off to him like that. Brian looked over at Andy, but he'd already turned away and was dribbling towards the basket. On his end, the conversation was obviously over. Brian looked over at Mr. Clark again, wondering what he was going to do. The older man looked like he really wanted to say something, but when he saw that Brian was watching him, he turned to go back into the house, slamming the door behind him.

Brian looked back at Andy just in time to see him put up a jump shot, which missed and bounced off of the rim. Andy caught it and started dribbling again, stepping back a few feet to give himself space. He was concentrating so hard on the ball that Brian wondered if he even remembered that he was there.

"We, uh…we don't have to play anymore," Brian told him.

Andy didn't even look up. "What?"

Brian watched him make another jump shot, which went in. "I just said that we don't have to play anymore if you don't want to. We can do something else."

"Like what?" Andy asked pointedly, looking up at Brian for the first time. The expression on his face was almost accusatory, like he was just waiting for Brian to suggest it so he could shoot him down.

Brian felt his face heat up. He hadn't even meant…_that_. "I don't know. I just thought you might want to get out of here. Go do something else."

Andy didn't respond to that, just looked away and started dribbling again. He made a wide arch across the driveway, dribbling around Brian, then went for a lay-up. It didn't go in, but Andy didn't seem to care.

"So, are we playing again?" Brian asked.

Andy shrugged and threw the ball at Brian's chest. Hard. Brian caught it, but barely. "Thanks," he said sarcastically, hand still stinging. When Andy didn't respond, he started dribbling the ball towards the basket, slowly at first, keeping his eyes focused on Andy's. Brian was about to go for a jump shot when suddenly Andy stepped forward, right into his path. Brian expected him to lunge for the ball, but instead Andy knocked him hard in the shoulder, causing Brian to drop the ball. Andy snatched it up and made a beeline for the basket.

"Hey!" Brian exclaimed, reaching up to rub his shoulder. "What was that for?"

Andy jumped to make a lay-up, then caught the ball on its descent. "What?" he asked distractedly.

Brian let out a frustrated breath. "Nothing," he muttered.

Andy looked up, eyebrows lifted in challenge. "You getting scared?" he asked sarcastically.

Brian clenched his jaw. "Not exactly."

Andy threw the ball at Brian, who caught it more easily this time since he was expecting it. "First to ten," Andy told him. "You start."

Brian looked down at the ball, then back up at Andy, who was watching him expectantly, waiting for him to say something. There was something in his eyes that Brian recognized, something angry and unyielding. Something Brian wasn't sure he liked. He'd seen it a lot since Andy had returned, in his eyes and in his words. Brian didn't know exactly where it was coming from, but he was starting to get a pretty good idea.

Brian sighed. "To ten."

* * *

**A/N:** I'll probably have the next chapter out within a few days. Please review. Thanks. 


	5. The Wave

**Chapter Rating: **M for sexual content.

**A/N: **I finished this chapter so quickly that I decided to go ahead and post it right away. I hope everyone enjoys it! Thank you for reading.

**

* * *

**

Chapter Five: The Wave

* * *

During the week before Christmas, the Chicago weather reporters had been predicting that a fierce cold front would be moving in over the weekend. For once, they were right. On Sunday evening, the temperature outdoors dropped way below freezing, and the wind chill factor was even lower. Mr. Johnson grabbed a stack of old bed sheets from the hall closet and went outside to cover his vegetable garden.

Brian always went for a jog on Sunday night, and he was determined that the cold wasn't going to keep him from fulfilling his ritual. He found the warmest track suit that he owned, layered it with a couple of extra t-shirts, and tugged on his Cleveland Browns ski cap. Then he tied up his worn out sneakers and stepped outside.

Within minutes, his nose was running like a leaky faucet, and his eyes were watery from the wind. Still, he kept going, knowing that he would hit his stride if he just didn't think about it. After a few minutes, the burning cold in his arms and legs dissolved into something that he could handle, and pushed himself to run a bit faster.

After about ten minutes, he reached the park in the middle of his neighborhood, empty save for a group of older guys using the basketball court. Among the vehicles parked along the curb was a light blue Bronco, probably belonging to one of the basketball players. But it looked so much like Andy's Bronco that Brian immediately glanced over at the court to see if Andy was among the group gathered there.

He wasn't, of course. Brian released out a foggy breath into the air, feeling a little bit stupid for imagining that he was. It was like his mind was programmed to find the shortest possible route back to Andy, no matter what he was already thinking about. He'd done it all semester, too. Brian figured that he probably thought about Andy more while he was gone than he did before he left. Granted, a lot of that had to do with the kiss. His first really good kiss with someone he really cared about, and it had to happen the night before that person left for a whole four months. So, what else was he supposed to do all semester after a kiss like that while Andy was away, starting his new life? What was _anyone_ supposed to do when they were left behind? Obsess? Pine away? Because Brian figured that he'd done a pretty good job of both. He didn't hang out with his old friends very often, opting instead to throw himself into his studies or his books. He ate lunch with the Physics Club, but that was about it. Hanging out with other people felt strange somehow. No one knew him the way Andy did, and he couldn't imagine confiding in anyone but Andy when it came to anything even remotely important, which meant that he ended up keeping a lot of things to himself, even when he would have liked to share them with someone.

As for the obsessing…well, he did plenty of that, too. Staring at the phone, hoping he'd call. Walking by the baseball fields, imagining the two of them sprawled out on the bleachers with a half-empty case of beers sitting between them. Sitting in class, wondering what Andy was going to eat for lunch that day, even though he hadn't even looked at his own lunch to see what he had. Brian thought about Andy more than he thought of himself, and although that probably should have scared him, it didn't. It just made things harder.

And if the past week was any indication, it wasn't going to get any easier.

* * *

When Brian arrived back at his house, he found his mother and sister sitting at the dining room table, talking quietly. When Morgan looked up, Brian saw that her cheeks were stained with trails of tears. Immediately, Brian felt his stomach clench up with dread. 

"What's wrong?" he asked, walking deeper into the room.

Mrs. Johnson looked up at her son. "Morgan has a loose tooth," she informed him.

Right away, Brian knew why that was so important. Morgan had turned seven in June, and their parents had been concerned that she hadn't lost any of her baby teeth yet, with the exception of one that she'd knocked out on the playground the spring before. The dentist had assured them that some children didn't start losing their teeth until they were seven or eight, sometimes even later. Morgan was the only one who wasn't all that concerned about it. In fact, she'd never seemed at all excited about losing her teeth, even when her friends started losing theirs. Brian wasn't sure why, since he remembered being really excited when he lost his first tooth. He'd played with it for days, wiggling it around with his tongue. It finally came out at dinner one night when he bit into a piece of garlic bread, and he'd been so excited that he almost swallowed it.

"Does it hurt?" Brian asked.

Morgan paused. "I little bit."

Mrs. Johnson sighed. "Do you want some water? Would that help?"

Morgan considered this for a moment, then nodded. "Maybe."

Mrs. Johnson stood from the table. "I'll be right back."

Just then, the doorbell rang. "Answer that, Brian, will you?" his mother asked, disappearing into the kitchen.

"Sure," Brian answered. He glanced over at Morgan, who was sitting with her elbows resting on the table and her chin in her hand. Her other hand was busy with her front teeth, pressing against them gently as if to test each one. Brian slipped out of the room and walked back to the front hall to answer the door.

When he opened the door, he found Andy on his front porch, bundled up in a heavy ski jacket. "Hey!" Andy exclaimed. His cheeks were rosy from the cold. "What's going on?"

Brian opened the door wider to let Andy in. "Nothing. What are you doing here?"

"I don't know," Andy replied, taking off his ski cap. "I just thought we could hang out." He looked up at Brian, expression serious. "I mean, it's kind of cold, so we can't go out, but…"

Brian nodded quickly, knowing that Andy meant they couldn't go to the baseball fields. "Yeah, I know. It's cold outside."

Andy paused, glancing up at the top of Brian's head. "Have you been out?" he asked.

Brian realized that he was still wearing his ski cap from when he'd gone running. He reached up to take it off, then ran a hand through his hair to fluff it up. "Oh, yeah. I went for a run."

Andy lifted an eyebrow in surprise. "A run? Really?" Brian nodded. "I didn't know you ran," Andy said, smiling.

He sounded so proud of him that Brian couldn't help but smile back. "Yeah, well, I had to do something after eating all those cheeseburgers."

Andy laughed. "Yeah, I guess so." He glanced down at Brian's feet. "Is that what you wear when you go out?"

Brian picked up one of his feet so that both of them had a better look. "Uh, yeah. Is that bad?"

Andy shook his head. "Those aren't made for running. The sole is too thin. Are they heavy?"

Brian frowned. "I don't know. Compared to what?"

Andy shrugged. "Running shoes should feel lighter, that's all." He looked up. "We should go running sometime. Do you always go at night?"

Brian shook his head. "No, I just go whenever."

Andy started to say something else, but he was interrupted by the sound of Mrs. Johnson talking in the dining room. "I'm sorry. Did I come at a bad time?" he asked.

Brian shook his head. "No, it doesn't matter. Morgan is just upset because she has her first loose tooth. My mom was trying to calm her down."

"Oh." Andy glanced over at the doorway leading to the dining room. "Is she okay?"

Brian nodded and started walking back into the dining room, motioning for Andy to follow him. "She'll be fine."

When Brian and Andy walked into the dining room, Mrs. Johnson looked up from the glass of water in her hand. "Hi, Andy," she said tiredly.

Andy nodded politely. "Hi, Mrs. Johnson."

Brian's mother put the glass of water on the table in front of her daughter. "Morgan, I'm going to go lay your night shirt out on your bed, okay? When you finish your water, it's time for bed."

Morgan nodded and picked up her glass, studying it carefully as if she suspected foul play.

"Mom, Andy's going to stay over for a while, okay?" asked Brian.

Mrs. Johnson nodded. "That's fine. Just remember to lock the front door when he leaves."

"I will," Brian promised.

Mrs. Johnson nodded in Andy's direction. "It's nice to see you, Andy."

Andy nodded. "You, too, ma'am."

Brian's mother walked out of the dining room, leaving the three of them alone. Andy looked over at Brian to see what they were going to do next, and Brian looked down at Morgan to see how she was doing. Morgan glanced back and forth between the two boys, silently sipping her water.

Brian sighed. "I need something to drink. I'll be right back."

Andy nodded, and Brian went into the kitchen for a glass of water. He gulped it down quickly, not even realizing how thirsty he was until the glass was empty. He filled it up one more time, then went back into the dining room.

Andy was sitting at the table across from Morgan, and he had his hand in his mouth, holding back his lip to show her his front teeth. "This one right here," he was saying. "That was the first tooth I ever lost. I was only five."

Morgan's eyes widened. "You had your first loose tooth when you were five?"

Andy shook his head. "No, my brother Brett knocked it out. He was older and bigger than I was. One day, I accidentally knocked over one of his Lego buildings, and he got mad at me, so he hit me, and my tooth came out."

Morgan's eyes grew even wider, if that was possible. "That was mean."

Andy laughed. "I know. He's not a very nice person."

Brian leaned against the doorjamb and took a sip of his water.

"I lost my other tooth that way," Morgan told Andy. She reached up and pointed to one of the teeth on the top front row. "I hit my face on the ground when we were playing at recess. Someone pushed me down."

Andy lifted an eyebrow. "A schoolyard rumble, huh?"

Morgan nodded. "It hurt a lot."

Andy nodded, considering her words carefully. "Well, it doesn't hurt as much when you have a loose tooth. Sometimes you don't even feel it fall out."

Morgan paused. "Really?"

Andy nodded. "Yeah."

Morgan was quiet for a minute, looking as though she was trying to make a decision about something. She took a sip of her water, but her eyes never left Andy's face. Finally, she put down the glass and took a deep breath. "Michael swallowed a tooth last year," she told him.

Andy paused. "Who is Michael?"

"A boy in my class," said Morgan. "I saw it happen. We were eating lunch in the cafeteria, and he was eating cookies. He swallowed the tooth with the cookie."

Andy made a face. "Ouch."

Morgan nodded very seriously. "It can probably happen in my sleep, too. If I go to sleep and it comes out then, I might swallow it." She paused. "What if I choke on it? I might die!"

Brian was about to step forward and offer the statistics on the chances of her actually dying from choking on a tooth, but Andy beat him to the punch. "I don't think that's going to happen," Andy assured her.

"How do you know?" asked Morgan, sounding a bit panicked. "When you're asleep, you don't know what's happening to you!"

Andy nodded. "That's true, but your tooth isn't going to come out when you sleep. It will probably come out if you start playing with it or if you're eating something."

Morgan still looked worried, so much so that Brian wanted to interrupt and offer his own words of advice, even though he didn't know what to say. But once again, Andy beat him to the punch. "But," he added, "if you lose it while you're sleeping, it'll just make it easier for the tooth fairy to pay you."

Morgan narrowed her eyes. "Really?"

Andy nodded. "Probably."

Morgan considered this for a moment. "How much does she pay you?"

"I don't know," Andy admitted. "I got a dime for every tooth, but maybe she pays more now."

"Virginia said she got a quarter," said Morgan.

"That's a lot of money," Andy pointed out. "It adds up."

Morgan grinned, and Andy laughed. Brian felt his chest tighten with emotion, and suddenly he was having a hard time breathing. Not from lust this time, but from something else, like maybe he was about to start crying, which was ridiculous, because he definitely wasn't. Still, there was something tugging at the pit of his stomach--something big--and he could tell that it was going to take over if he wasn't careful.

Brian's mother appeared in the doorway. "Come on, Morgan. It's way past your bed time."

Morgan set her glass back onto the table and stood from the table. "Bye," she said to Andy.

Andy smiled. "Good night."

Morgan ran towards the doorway, where her mother was waiting for her, and the two of them disappeared down the hallway leading to Morgan and Brian's rooms. Andy stood from his chair and took a few steps towards Brian, still smiling. He looked so relaxed and comfortable that Brian felt a wave of affection hit the back of his throat. He took a few steps forward so that they were standing less than a foot apart, then reached forward and pinched a piece of Andy's t-shirt between his thumb and forefinger. Andy stiffened, and Brian thought that he was going to move away, but he didn't. Brian looked up, and their eyes met. Andy's expression betrayed his surprise and confusion, but not much else. Brian, who was still clutching the front of Andy's t-shirt between his fingers, pressed his knuckles lightly against Andy's stomach. Andy sucked in a shallow breath, but made no effort to move away, even though Brian could tell that his stomach muscles were clenched and that his body was poised for flight. Brian wanted to say something, but everything sounded so dumb and empty in his head. Instead, he just pressed his fingers a little bit harder against Andy's stomach and swallowed the lump in his throat.

"Brian!" his mother called from somewhere down the hall.

Brian sighed and released Andy's t-shirt. "Yes, ma'am?" he called out.

"Can you turn off the porch light for me, please?"

"Yes, ma'am!" he answered. He glanced up at Andy, who was watching him closely, expression unreadable as always. Neither boy said anything. Brian cleared his throat and walked back into the hallway to turn off the porch light.

"So, do you want to play video games or something?" Brian asked.

Andy, who had followed him into the hallway, nodded. "Sure."

"I need to take a shower first, but you can go ahead and get it set up," Brian told him, starting down the hall to his bedroom. Andy followed him into the room and sat down on the bed.

Brian motioned towards the bathroom with his thumb. "Well, I'll just be a minute…"

Andy nodded and reached forward to start unbuttoning his jacket, which he tossed onto the floor at the foot of the bed. He did the same with his gloves and his ski cap, then reached down to tug off his sweatshirt, leaving only a t-shirt on underneath. There was a piece of hair sticking up on his head, and Brian wanted desperately to walk over and run his fingers through Andy's hair to smooth it down.

Andy glanced over at Brian, who was still standing in the doorway of the bathroom. "Is everything okay?"

Brian nodded, swallowing deeply. "Yeah, everything's fine."

* * *

When he'd finished with his shower, Brian wrapped a towel around his waist and walked out of the bathroom that separated Morgan's room from his own. Andy was sprawled out on the bed, shoes off, watching television. Whatever was on must have been really funny, because he was laughing so hard that he looked like he was crying. 

"What are you watching?" Brian asked, stepping closer to the bed to get a better look. When he realized what it was, he smiled. It was the coyote and the roadrunner, Andy's favorite cartoon. The coyote had a stick of dynamite, and he was attaching it to an army green parachute. The roadrunner was…running.

Brian glanced over at Andy to see that he had stopped laughing so hard and was looking at him, lips parted just barely. Suddenly, Brian realized that he wasn't wearing anything but a towel. He pressed one arm instinctively against his stomach--as if that was going to help--and took a step backwards. "I'll get dressed in the closet."

Andy nodded quickly and glanced back up at the television screen.

Brian threw on a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants and stepped back into the room. Andy was flipping channels, going from sit-com to infomercial to news program. "Hey, they're playing Star Wars on channel eight," he said without looking up from the screen.

"Oh." Brian had been surprised to find out that Andy was a big fan of the Star Wars trilogy. During the summer, they'd probably watched Episodes IV and V about twenty times, and every time the Death Star exploded, Andy would get so excited that he would practically jump out of his seat. He claimed that he only liked the movies for the action and violence, but Brian liked to think that Andy had a secret geek side that no one knew about but him.

"Do you want to watch it?" Andy asked. "We haven't seen it in a while."

Brian sat down next to him on the bed, right next to the window. "Sure."

Andy flipped back to channel eight, and Brian realized that the film had already started. Luke and C3PO were in Luke's land speeder, cruising through the desert in search of R2D2. A few minutes later, Obi Wan Kenobi appeared to save them from a group of hostile sand people.

At some point, the run and the hot shower must have caught up with Brian, because he woke much later to find that Andy was moving around on the bed next to him. He looked up at the screen just in time to see Darth Vader's ship explode in outer space. Brian glanced over at Andy, who was biting his lip, trying to keep from bursting out with excited laughter. He must have noticed Brian moving around, because he looked over at him.

"Sorry," said Brian. "I didn't mean to fall asleep."

Andy shook his head and looked back at the screen. "It's okay. You missed the best part, though."

Brian smiled. "No, I saw it."

They watched the last few minutes of the movie in silence. Luke and Han received their medals from Leia, and Andy laughed every time Chewbacca said anything at all. Finally, the end credits started rolling, with the theme song playing in the background. Andy reached for the remote to turned down the volume, then glanced over at Brian.

And that's when Brian realized that he was staring at Andy. Waiting, though for what he wasn't sure. Andy must have felt the same way, because he pursed his lips together nervously. His eyes flickered down to Brian's chest, then his stomach. Brian felt his stomach muscles clench with anticipation, as if they could feel Andy's eyes on them.

Tentatively, Andy reached forward and brushed his hand against Brian's abdomen, pressing down gently through the fabric of his t-shirt. Brian's breath caught in his throat, and he looked up. Andy was watching him expectantly and with more than a little bit of fear, probably wondering if what he was doing was okay. Brian nodded slightly, and Andy looked back down at Brian's torso. His fingers skimmed a bit lower, pushing the bottom of Brian's t-shirt up so that he could press his palm against Brian's skin. His hand was warmer than it was when they were out on the baseball fields, and Brian decided that he liked it better this way.

After a few seconds, Andy's hand traveled lower, pushing past the waistband of Brian's sweatpants. Brian glanced up quickly, wondering if Andy realized what he was doing. But Andy wasn't looking at Brian's face anymore. His eyes were narrowed in concentration, and he was focusing on his own hand, which had disappeared completely into Brian's pants. His fingers pressed firmly against the thin material of Brian's underwear, and Brian wondered once again if Andy realized what he was doing. After days of making out in the cold, they'd never done anything like this. They'd never--

And then Andy slid his hand _into _the underwear, and all coherent thought disappeared completely.

It felt amazing. Better than amazing. Andy's hand was strong and warm, and when he wrapped it around him, it was all Brian could do not to lose it right then. Without meaning to, he moved his hips forward, pushing himself against Andy's hand. Andy must have taken this as a good sign, because he scooted closer on the bed and leaned forward so that he had better access. His grip tightened, and he started moving his hand up and down, slowly but firmly. Brian closed his eyes, forcing himself to take a couple of deep breaths through his nostrils in an effort to maintain control.

But nothing could stop the inevitable. After less than a minute, Brian could feel it building, a tidal wave of…oh, _god_. "Andy," he breathed, sucking in another shallow breath. His hips jerked involuntarily, pushing into Andy's hand. Another stroke, another gasp, and then he was releasing himself all over Andy's hand. It felt like an ocean wave crashing onto the shore, breaking everything in its path, hurtling towards something Brian couldn't name and couldn't see.

When it was over, Brian kept his eyes closed for a moment to fight off the dizziness. Andy removed his hands from the inside of his pants, and Brian looked up at him for the first time since they'd started.

Andy was looking down at his own hand like it was some new artifact and he was trying to figure out what it was. He glanced up at Brian, then away almost immediately. Brian saw his Adam's apple move up and down, as if Andy had just swallowed a lump of something bitter.

"I'm going to use the bathroom," Andy said quietly.

Brian nodded, still too stunned to say anything.

Andy stood up from the bed and went into the bathroom, holding his hand out in front of him as he walked. Sneaking a quick peek at Brian, he shut the door behind him. After a few seconds, Brian heard the faucet turn on. On television, the Star Wars theme faded into a commercial for dishwashing liquid.

Brian let his head fall back onto the pillow, wondering when his life got so complicated.

**

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A/N: **Well, there you go. Hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. Please review. 


	6. The Present

**A/N: **Well, it's nice to know that there are other pervs like me out there. :p I'm glad everyone enjoyed the last chapter.

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Chapter Six: The Present

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_"…cut you into little pieces!"_

Brian swallowed deeply. "Is that, um…what is that again?"

Brian's cousin Rob reached for the stereo and turned down the volume. "What?" he asked irritably.

"Sorry, I was just wondering what we were listening to," Brian replied, cheeks burning.

"The band's name is Toxic Waste," Rob answered. "They're from Sweden."

"Oh." Brian paused thoughtfully. "Why are they called Toxic Waste?" he asked finally.

Rob just rolled his eyes and turned up the volume again.

Brian sighed and settled back on the bed. For some reason, he never felt comfortable in Rob's room. Maybe it was because everything was painted black: the walls, the desk, the chairs, the ceiling. Maybe it was because he was always playing his music so loud that Brian could hardly hear himself think. Or maybe it was because Rob had pictures of marijuana leaves and mutilated cats on his walls. But more than likely, it was because every time he went into Rob's room, it was to hang out with Rob, who was one of the weirdest people that Brian had ever met.

Except maybe for Allison, but she didn't count.

Brian glanced up at Rob, who was sitting at his desk, looking at a piece of paper with dark, messy writing covering both sides. He hardly seemed to notice that Brian was there, which wasn't unusual at all. Rob was two years younger than Brian, but somehow he always managed to make Brian feel like he was the youngest. Maybe it was because he always seemed so annoyed when Brian's family came over for holidays or get-togethers. He stayed in his room as much as possible, and when Brian wandered in to say hello, he didn't make much of an effort to help him feel welcome. Brian was pretty sure that Rob thought he was a total nerd, which was kind of hard to deny.

"Well, um…" Brian stood from the bed, and Rob glanced up. "I'm going to go help my mom in the kitchen!" he shouted above the music.

Rob offered a brief nod and looked back down at the paper in his hand. Brian offered a halfhearted wave and slouched out of the bedroom.

In the kitchen, Brian's mom and his aunt Christine were fixing dinner. Christine's husband Michael had a pretty good job that brought in a decent amount of money, and their house was pretty nice. The kitchen was nearly twice the size of the Johnsons' kitchen back in Shermer, which meant that everyone wasn't tripping all over one another if you tried to squeeze in more than two people at a time.

Brian came up next to his mother, who was arranging dinner rolls on a cookie sheet. "Do you need any help?" he asked.

Mrs. Johnson looked up, and right away, Brian could tell that she was irritated. "Sure," she said tiredly, passing him the tray of dough. "Just keep them about a half inch apart."

Brian nodded. "Is, um…" He lowered his voice. "Is everything okay?" he whispered.

Mrs. Johnson didn't answer. "Is that green bean casserole ready yet, Christine?" she called over her shoulder.

Christine looked up from one of her pumpkin pies. "Just a few more minutes," she answered.

Mrs. Johnson nodded stiffly and reached for a napkin to wipe the dough from her hands.

Brian grabbed a ball of dough and glanced over his shoulder, where his aunt was still fussing over the pumpkin pie. Christine was only four years younger than her sister, but she looked about ten years younger. She had long, dark brown hair and matching eyes, and there wasn't a wrinkle in sight. She was wearing a plum colored sweater and a pair of brown slacks, and she had her hair pulled back to reveal a pair of impressive diamond earrings. She always looked like she spent a lot of time getting dressed and ready, unlike Brian's mother, who hated wearing make up and jewelry and only put it on if she had to. If Brian didn't know for sure that they were sisters, he never would have guessed that they were related.

Except for the fact that they fought more than any two strangers would ever have cause to. Christine was his mother's only sibling. Their brother Teddy had died in a car accident when he was Brian's age, leaving the two sisters to fight it out for who would replace him as their parents' favorite. At least, that's what he'd heard. His mother didn't talk about it very often, leaving Brian to put the pieces together for himself over the years.

"Daddy, do you want some more water?"

Brian looked up to see that his grandfather was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, holding a glass of water in his hand. He didn't look up.

Christine stepped closer to him. "Daddy?" she said, a bit louder this time.

This time, he jumped slightly and looked up. "You scared me!" he exclaimed.

Christine offered him a sweet smile. "Do you want me to get you some more water?" she asked.

Her father nodded and handed her the glass. "If you don't mind." He smiled. "Thank you, sweetheart."

Christine beamed at him. Brian glanced over at his mother, who was watching them closely. When Christine turned to refill the glass of water, Mrs. Johnson looked away and went back to stirring the gravy.

"So, did you get a chance to visit Rob?" Christine asked, looking over at Brian.

Brian looked up. "Oh, um…yeah."

Christine smiled and dropped a couple of ice cubes into the glass in her hand. "It's so nice that you two are so close in age."

Brian forced himself to smile. "Yeah, it is."

Christine filled the glass with water from the tap, then gave the glass back to her father, who accepted it gratefully. "Rob has been so busy lately," she told Brian. "He's been teaching himself how to play guitar, you know."

"Oh, really?" asked Brian. "He didn't mention that."

Christine shrugged. "He's so quiet sometimes. He just gets into his own little world, and it's so hard to drag him out." She laughed. "I don't know what I'm going to do with him."

Brian had a few ideas, but decided not to say them out loud. He cleared his throat. "Well, guitar sounds really cool," he replied, not knowing what else he was supposed to say.

Christine nodded enthusiastically. "I know! Michael and I are so proud of him. He's been writing songs and everything. He won't let us see them, but we can hear him practicing in his room." She smiled proudly. "He's getting really good."

"Who is getting good?" asked Michael, who had just walked into the kitchen.

Christine looked up at him and smiled. "Our son. I was just telling Brian that he's teaching himself guitar."

Michael narrowed his eyes. "Where is he?"

"In his room."

Michael sighed. "Still? I told him to come out half an hour ago!"

Christine reached forward to pat her husband on the arm. "I know, but he was writing something. He said he needed some more time."

Michael pursed his lips together. "It's Christmas Eve, Christine. He doesn't need to be holed up in his room listening to that crap. His family is here."

Christine sighed. "I know, I know…"

Michael stared at her for a few seconds, then shook his head and left the room.

Christine was quiet for a minute, but then she said, "Michael doesn't like Rob to spend so much time alone. He says it isn't healthy." She shrugged casually and turned back to finish fixing her pumpkin pie. "I told him that he's at the age now where he needs his space, especially if he's going to grow as an artist."

Brian exchanged glances with his mother, who rolled her eyes.

A couple of minutes later, Michael walked back into the kitchen, followed closely by Rob, who looked like he was ready to spit nails. Michael stopped and glanced back at his son, eyebrow lifted expectantly. Rob glared back.

"Mom, do you need any help in the kitchen?" he asked lifelessly.

Christine glanced up, surprised. "Oh, no, honey. We're fine, but thank you for asking."

Rob looked relieved, but not for long. "Why don't you go make sure the table is set?" Michael suggested, putting a hand on Rob's shoulder before he could escape back into his room.

Rob shrugged him off violently and marched into the dining room. Michael looked over at his wife to see if she had anything to say, but Christine was too busy making pie crust leaves for her pumpkin pie to notice. Michael ran a large hand through his thick, dark hair and went back into the living room. Brian could hear Rob in the dining room, slamming the silverware down onto the table, letting out a string of cuss words every few seconds.

"There," said Christine, stepping back to admire her work on the pumpkin pie. "Perfect."

* * *

Dinner went smoothly, considering the fact that Rob wouldn't stop glaring at his father and Morgan wouldn't stop complaining about her tooth. She'd been doing it all day. After managing not to choke on it during the night, Morgan had developed sudden fascination with her loose tooth that was bordering on obsession. Every time Brian saw her, she had her finger in her mouth, wiggling the tooth to see if it had gotten any looser. At lunch, she'd asked for an Oreo cookie, presumably to help loosen the tooth some more. Fortunately, her mother caught on to what Morgan was trying to do and denied her request. 

But Morgan wasn't so concerned with her tooth that she forgot about opening presents. As soon as dinner was over, she jumped out of her chair and made a beeline for the Christmas tree in the living room. As Brian helped his aunt and mother clear the table and wash dishes, Morgan sorted the gifts into separate piles, arranging them neatly in the middle of the room. Mr. Johnson helped by reading the names that she couldn't read.

As he washed dishes, Brian wondered what Andy's family was doing right then. He knew that the Clarks waiting until Christmas day to open their gifts, but he also knew that they usually ate a big meal together on Christmas Eve. He imagined Andy sitting at the table next to his sister, stuffing a piece of bread into his mouth and laughing at one of his mother's stories. Brian kind of wanted to call him, just to say hello, but he was too embarrassed. He'd already tried calling Andy earlier that morning, but he'd ended up talking to Andy's mother, who talked his ear off for about five minutes asking about school and college plans. When he finally got around to asking where Andy was, she told him that he was playing LEGOS with his nephew Nicolas. She promised to give him the message, but Andy never called back. Brian figured that he just got busy and didn't have time, or that his mom forgot to give him the message, but there was a small part of him that wondered if it wasn't something bigger and that Andy was avoiding him, especially after what they'd done the night before.

When they'd finished washing dishes, Brian walked back into the living room, where Morgan was waiting as patiently as possible, considering that the stack of presents at her feet was almost bigger than she was. Her father was sitting next to the tree, admiring the ornaments, and Brian's grandfather was sitting on the couch by himself watching a game show on television. His mop of pale grey hair was sticking out in all different directions, as if he hadn't combed it in days.

For some reason, seeing him sitting there all alone, Brian felt sorry for his grandfather. The older man always looked kind of lost when he was in big groups, probably because he couldn't hear very well. He had a hearing aid that he kept in his front shirt pocket, but even that didn't help most of the time since all background noises were magnified and could be really overwhelming. He usually kept the hearing aid turned down low unless someone spoke to him directly. The rest of the time, he just sat back and let everyone carry on without him.

"Hi, Granddad." Brian sat down next to him on the couch. "Can I sit here?"

His grandfather looked up, startled by the sudden movement. "Oh, hello." He laughed. "I didn't see you there."

Brian smiled. "Did you enjoy your dinner?"

His grandfather reached up to adjust the volume on his hearing aid, and Brian heard it squeak loudly in protest. Then the older man looked back up at his grandson expectantly. After a moment, Brian realized that he hadn't heard the question.

"Did you get some of mom's green bean casserole?" he tried again, a little bit louder this time.

His grandfather nodded. "Oh, yes. It was good. No one makes them like Catherine does."

Brian nodded. "I know. It's good."

His grandfather nodded, and the two of them fell into an awkward silence. Brian hadn't spoken with his grandfather very often over the years, and he was never sure what to say to him when they saw one another at family events. He'd heard stories from his friends about how cool their grandparents were, about how they could tell them just about anything and it was like talking to a good friend. Brian didn't really know how that worked. None of his grandparents were like that at all. He loved them a lot, but he couldn't imagine telling them details of his personal life. Especially not the way his personal life was going lately.

"Stand on your own two feet."

Brian glanced up. "What?"

His grandfather motioned towards the television. "Stand on your own two feet."

Brian looked over at the television, which was tuned to 'Wheel of Fortune'. Sure enough, the answer to the puzzle was "Stand on your own two feet". The girl on screen obviously didn't see it, because she guessed an "M" and lost her turn.

"Mommy!" Morgan shouted. "The presents are ready!"

"We're coming, Morgan!" her mother called out from the kitchen, exasperation coloring her words. "Just give us a minute!"

Morgan sighed and leaned back in her chair, still staring at the stack of presents at her feet.

A couple of minutes later, Mrs. Johnson and her sister emerged from the kitchen, and Morgan leapt to her feet, ready to get the show on the road. She made sure that everyone knew which stack was theirs, then went back to her own tower of gifts.

The gift opening session didn't last that long. Morgan was the only one with more than five gifts, and that was just because Mrs. Johnson had brought some gifts from home for her to open. She'd told Brian earlier that day that she'd already shopped for Morgan's gifts from Santa, and it was too late to return them, even though Morgan knew he wasn't real. So she'd just labeled all of Santa's gifts "From Mommy and Daddy" and stuck them under the tree.

Brian was pleased with his stash. He got a sweater and a couple of games for his Intellivision console that he'd been drooling over since October. He couldn't wait to show them to Andy so that they could try them out.

Brian's grandfather didn't get much, mostly because he didn't need much. Brian's mom, always so practical, bought him a bunch of socks and underwear, along with a couple of sweaters. Only when he got to the bottom of his stack did Brian realize that Michael and Christine hadn't gotten him anything.

"Oh, Daddy?" Christine said loudly, looking behind her chair. "You have one more." She handed him a small red box with a silver bow on top.

Her father smiled appreciatively and tore the bow off the top of the package. "Well, what is this?" he mused, pulling out a long black remote control.

Christine grinned. "It's a TV remote. Michael and I bought you a new TV!"

Just as she said that, Michael emerged from the kitchen with a large box in his arms. "Here you go, Arthur. This is yours."

Brian's grandfather looked a bit shell-shocked. "Well, why on earth did you do that?" he exclaimed.

"Because the TV you have is so old," Christine explained. "And the volume doesn't work properly half the time. This one has closed captioning, so you can turn on the subtitles and read what they're saying."

Brian's grandfather shook his head. "This was too much trouble," he said quietly. "You shouldn't have done that, Chrissy."

"Oh, it was no trouble," Christine assured him, leaning down to hug him. "We wanted to."

Her father wiped conspicuously at his cheeks, brushing away the tears. "Well, I really appreciate it," he told her. "I really do."

Christine kissed him on the cheek and returned to her chair, which was right between Brian's and his mother's. He looked over at his mom, who was watching the exchange with narrowed eyes.

"Christine, you spent too much money," she hissed. "Why didn't you tell me you were going to do that? We could have helped!"

Christine brushed her away. "Don't be silly, Cathy! Michael optioned some stock, and we had plenty of money this year. We wanted to do something special for Dad."

Her sister frowned. "I know you did. I just…" She shook her head. "I just wish you'd told me first. I would have helped."

Christine waved dismissively and turned back to her father, who was staring at the television like he'd never seen anything so beautiful in his entire life. Brian's mother looked like she couldn't decide whether to yell or cry.

"Rob, do you have any more gifts?" Christine asked.

Rob glanced down at the stack of gifts at his feet. "I don't think so."

"Well, it looks like Morgan's the only one left," Christine said, turning to look at her niece. "Do you want to open another one, sweetie?"

Morgan nodded eagerly and grabbed the biggest box she could see. Beside her, Rob stood up, grabbed his gifts and started walking down the hall.

"Rob!" Michael called after him. "Where are you going?"

Rob ducked back into the living room. "To my room," he said, as if it was obvious.

"What are you going to do?" Christine asked.

"Drop dead, I hope," Brian blurted, without even thinking.

Everyone turned to gape at him, except for his grandfather, who probably hadn't heard what he said. Brian's mother, strangely enough, was the only one that didn't look angry or scandalized. In fact, she looked like she was trying not to smile.

"Brian!" Mr. Johnson exclaimed.

Brian sighed. "Sorry," he muttered.

Rob ignored the comment and looked back at his mother. "I'm going to my room," he told her.

"No," said Michael. "You're not."

Rob scoffed. "I don't have anything left to open!"

Michael glared at him. "Sit down. Now."

Rob's face flashed with anger. "No," he said firmly. "I'm going to my room."

"No," said Michael. "You're going to sit down and spend time with your family. Don't make me say it again."

Rob's nostrils flared. "You don't have the right to tell me what to do. Not anymore."

Michael looked slightly uncomfortable at this. "Yes, I do. I'm your father."

Rob glanced around the room at the others, who were started to look extremely uncomfortable. Then he looked back at his father, eyes shining with bitter triumph. "Aren't you going to tell them, Dad?" he spat out. "Aren't you going to tell them what you and Mom have been talking about all _fucking _week?"

"Watch your mouth," Michael warned him.

Rob scoffed. "Is that what you're worried about? What kind of language I use?" He shook his head. "Well, fuck you, Dad!"

"Rob!" Christine exclaimed. "That is not accept--"

"And fuck you, too!" Rob shouted at his mother, stepping backwards into the hallway leading to his bedroom. "Fuck both of you! Fuck you, and fuck your stupid, fucking divorce!" With that, he turned around and stormed down the hall. A few seconds later, Brian heard his Swedish rock music blaring.

Christine looked like she didn't know what to say. She cleared her throat. "We're, um…" She glanced over at Michael, who was staring at the floor. "We're not actually getting divorced. We're just separating. Michael is going to, um…he's going to get a little apartment in the city, closer to work, and he's going to stay there for a while." She offered a wan smile. "It's only temporary."

Michael looked up. "Christine, can I talk to y--"

Christine stood up and put a hand on his shoulder to silence him. "We're all here, and there's no reason why we can't have Christmas as usual." She smiled again, this one just as forced as the first. "And we still have presents to open."

* * *

The Johnsons left Michael and Christine's house at about midnight. Morgan fell asleep against Brian's shoulder on the way home. He didn't push her away. He was too consumed with his own thoughts to worry about her drooling on his sweater. 

There was a time, maybe two or three years previous, when Brian thought that his parents were going to get divorced. His father got demoted, and with the loss in status came a loss in salary. Brian wasn't sure if that was the only cause--and in fact, he knew it probably wasn't--but he remembered hearing them arguing late at night when they thought he couldn't hear them. Arguing about electricity bills and car payments and even college tuition. That was the part that surprised Brian the most. He was just starting high school, and his mom was pushing him to study as much as he possibly could. He'd always been a good student, and he'd enjoyed it, so it confused him when she kept pressuring him about it. Looking back, it was easier to put the pieces together and figure out why she wanted him to make such good grades, but at the time, the only thing he could think was that somehow it was his fault, that he was just making things worse for his parents.

"Morgan, we're here," Mr. Johnson said quietly after he'd pulled into the driveway and cut the engine. "Wake up, sweetheart."

Morgan stirred and lifted her head from Brian's shoulder, but her eyes were still half-closed. "What?" she asked groggily.

Brian helped her unbuckle her seatbelt, and their father lifted her out of the seat. "You're almost too heavy for me to carry anymore," he told her as he walked up the front steps towards the house.

Morgan's response, if she had one at all, was swallowed by the night air.

Brian's mother shut the trunk and sighed. "I don't feel like dragging all of those presents in tonight. We'll get them tomorrow."

Brian nodded. "Sure."

Mrs. Johnson patted him on the shoulder and walked around him, headed for the front door. Brian took a deep breath. "Hey, Mom?"

His mother turned to look at him, eyebrow lifted expectantly. "Yes?"

Brian offered her a sad smile. "Merry Christmas."

His mother paused, letting it soak in. Finally, she nodded and let out a deep sigh.

"Merry Christmas."

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A/N:** Andy wasn't in this one, sadly, but he'll be in the next one, not to worry. In the meantime, please let me know what you thought of this chapter. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks. : ) 


	7. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

**A/N: **The Walt Disney World Christmas Day Parade aired for the first time in 1984, which is very convenient for me since this story just so happens to take place in 1984. Back then, they called it the Walt Disney World Very Merry Christmas Parade.

Stole the chapter title from the book by Joanne Greenberg.

**A/N, II: **Sorry, I took this chapter down for a bit to do some editing.

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Chapter Seven: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

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On Christmas day, Brian woke to find that his feet and hands were stiff with cold. He tugged his blanket up over his shoulders and tucked his knees up against his stomach, but it didn't help. The house was freezing. He glanced over at his window to see that it was completely covered in frost, evidence that the temperature had dropped outside.

After spending a few minutes gathering his courage, Brian finally pushed his blankets aside and got out of bed. His body heat must have been protecting him more than he'd originally thought, because his teeth started chattering almost immediately. He grabbed a sweatshirt and a pair of socks from his dresser, then tugged on a ski cap and walked out into the living room.

He found his father and his sister on the couch in front of the television, both of them bundled up in fleece blankets. His sister was wearing a pair of huge pink earmuffs, her puffy pink ski jacket and a pair of pink knit gloves, and his father was wearing a thick navy bathrobe. Both of them were staring at the television, completely zoned out.

But when Brian walked in, Morgan practically jumped out of her skin. "Daddy!" she exclaimed, nudging her father in the stomach. "Brian's awake! Can we open presents now?"

"Sure, sweetheart," her father said, reaching up to wipe the sleep from his eyes. "In just a few minutes."

Morgan sighed impatiently and settled back in her seat.

"Why is it so cold in here?" Brian asked, sitting down next to Morgan on the couch. He tried pulling the edge of her blanket into his lap, but she snatched it back.

"The heater isn't working," said Mr. Johnson. "We've already called someone to come and fix it, but it might be a while."

Brian paused. "Oh." He glanced up at the television, narrowing his sleep-heavy eyes to focus better. "What is this?"

"The Very Merry Christmas Parade," Morgan told him. "Look, it's Minnie Mouse!"

Sure enough, there she was, in all of her glory. She was wearing a red dress and a matching red Santa hat, and she was waving merrily to the throngs of people lining the street. Mickey Mouse stood next to her, dancing to the "Jingle Bell Rock" as their float continued down the street.

"I want to go to Disney World," Morgan said suddenly. "Daddy, can we go?"

"Sure, sweetheart," he replied, yawning widely. "In just a few minutes."

Brian leaned back against the couch and folded his arms across his chest, trying to keep warm. As he watched the parade, he thought about Nicolas, Andy's nephew. He was probably watching the parade, too. Maybe all of them were. Maybe Andy and Nicolas were sitting on the floor in the Clarks' living room, playing with the remote control car Andy bought him and watching Donald Duck do cartwheels down Main Street.

Brian's mother appeared in the kitchen doorway holding a cup of coffee in each hand. She was dressed in a robe that was very similar to her husband's, and her hair was sticking up a little on one side.

"Good morning," she said to Brian.

Brian nodded. "Good morning." He watched her set both mugs on the coffee table, then take a seat in the chair next to the couch. Beside him, Morgan sat up a bit straighter in her seat, tugging the blanket away from Brian again.

"Mommy," she said loudly. "Daddy said we can go to Disney World!"

* * *

The repair man never came that day. The family spent most of the day huddled together on the couch, watching Christmas movies on television and drinking hot cocoa. Morgan sat on the floor in front of the couch, bundled up in her coat and earmuffs, and played with her new Barbies.

Brian woke up on the day after Christmas--still covered in about ten pounds of blankets, and still wearing his knit ski cap--to hear his father talking with the repairman in the hallway outside of his room. Something about a faulty wire…shouldn't take too long to replace. Brian closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

When he woke up again, he was sweating. He pushed the blankets aside and sat up in bed, glancing over at his alarm clock, which said that it was almost ten A.M. God, he never slept that late, probably because his mother never let him. On the weekends, she was usually knocking on his door by eight or eight thirty, wondering why he was still in bed. Normally, he didn't mind since he was a morning person like she was, but after all of those long nights on the baseball field, the lack of sleep was starting to catch up with him. For whatever reason, he was glad that she'd let him sleep.

No sooner had the thought popped into his head when he heard someone knock firmly on his door. "Brian!" his mother said loudly. "It's almost ten o'clock!"

Brian sighed. So much for letting him sleep. "I'm awake!"

"Well then get up," she told him. "We need to talk."

Immediately, Brian's stomach felt like it was full of lead. "Okay," he said tentatively. "I'll be right there."

His mother didn't say anything else. He heard her footsteps fading as she walked back down the hall.

As he dressed, Brian worried about what she was going to talk with him about. Had someone died? No, it wasn't that. From the tone of her voice, it sounded school related. Maybe she'd gotten his report card in the mail and he'd failed something! Shit, he knew he should have studied harder for that government final.

But when he walked into the dining room, he found that his mother wasn't looking at his report card, but his pile of college folders. He let out a sigh of relief, but just a little one. He really wasn't ready to talk to her about college just yet.

"I saved you some pancakes," his mother told him, motioning towards a plate on the table in front of his chair. "They're still warm."

"Thanks," he said, taking his seat across the table from her. She had his folders spread out in front of her for easy access. There were six of them in all, one for each of the colleges he'd applied to. In the folders, they'd carefully stored and organized every scrap of paper that had anything at all to do with his application process. Essays, scholarship applications, references. It was all there. Everything he'd worked for, in six labeled folders. His future.

"I was just looking at your references," said Mrs. Johnson as Brian reached for his fork. "Mr. Hashimoto filled out the reference form for The University of Michigan, didn't he?"

Brian nodded and started cutting up his pancakes. "I talked to him just before finals. He said he sent it."

Mrs. Johnson nodded. "Well, we should call their office and make sure. He has so many references to fill out, and I want to make sure it got there."

Brian nodded. "Okay. I'll call in a few days."

For the next few minutes, neither of them said anything. Brian ate his pancakes and drank his orange juice, and Mrs. Johnson pored over his applications, making sure that everything was in order. Brian hoped that she wouldn't find something he'd missed. He'd been so careful, making sure that he'd filled everything out properly and that all of his teachers and administrators had submitted their references properly. He'd spent the week before finals putting the finishing touches on his essays, and he thought they were pretty good. He'd shipped out six thick manila envelopes on December 12th, and if all went well, he'd receive six different envelopes, just as thick, by the time Spring Break rolled around.

Brian took his last bite of pancake just as Mrs. Johnson closed the last folder in her stack. She looked up at him expectantly, and he swallowed his food quickly.

"So, what are you thinking?" she asked.

Brian paused. "About, um…about college?"

Mrs. Johnson nodded. "You've been looking into these colleges for over a year now. Have you come to any conclusions?"

Brian wiped his mouth with his napkin and set it down on the table in front of him. "Well, I don't know," he admitted. "I guess I thought I would wait until I saw where I got accepted before I made any decisions."

"You'll get accepted to all of them," she said bluntly. "We both know that."

Brian hesitated, then nodded. That wasn't arrogance or misguided maternal pride; it was probably the truth. Brian had talked to his parents sometime during his junior year about his expectations for college, and they'd all agreed that schools like Harvard and Yale were too expensive, even if he did get in. They decided that it would be better if Brian went to one of the state schools, where he was more likely to get a scholarship to help him pay for his tuition and room and board. His grades were top-notch; with the exception of one B he'd earned in shop, he had all A's. He'd scored very well on his SAT's and was still waiting to hear back if he'd been selected as a National Merit Finalist, though he was pretty much a shoo-in at that point. He was also an active member in three academic clubs, and he'd done some community service for his church the summer before, which looked good on applications. In short, he was exactly the kind of student that colleges were looking for, and there was no reason for him to get rejected from any of the public universities.

"Are there any that stand out to you right now?" his mother asked. "Any that you've changed your mind about? It would be nice to start narrowing it down, if we can."

Brian swallowed. Truthfully, he hadn't thought much about any of them except Ohio State, and that was just because of Andy. Brian didn't want to go to a school where he didn't know anyone at all, and the past semester had been so hard without Andy there. He wanted to be close to Andy again, the way they were during those last few weeks of high school, and he knew how hard it would be for them to maintain any kind of relationship--and especially he kind he was hoping for--if they remained separated by the distance. A part of him even hoped that they could room together in the fall. He imagined them studying together, watching television on Brian's bed, eating dinner on the floor. Just like high school.

"Well, I've been thinking a lot about Ohio State," Brian said finally. "I kind of…I think I want to go there."

His mother looked surprised. "Ohio State?" she echoed. "Isn't that where Andy goes to school?"

Brian felt himself blushing. God, was he that transparent? "Um, yeah…yeah, it is."

Mrs. Johnson frowned. "I don't want you to make decisions about your future based on what your friends are doing. It's not about hanging out with your friends. It's about studying hard and graduating and getting a good job. This is your life, not his."

"I know," Brian said quickly. "I know. But I've been looking into it, and Ohio State has a really good computer engineering department, and they have one of the best research units in the country." He took a deep breath. "I mean, I really think, you know…I think I would be happy there."

Mrs. Johnson watched him quietly for a moment, thinking. Brian shifted uncomfortably in his seat, hoping that she wouldn't be able to tell that he was lying. Well, not lying exactly. Everything that he'd said was true, but he hadn't known about any of it until he'd pretty much already made up his mind about where he was going. The computer engineering thing just made that decision even easier.

"Okay," Mrs. Johnson said finally. "If that's your decision, then…"

Brian nodded.

Mrs. Johnson nodded. "Well, let's wait until the scholarship decisions come back. We'll talk about it again then."

Brian nodded, relieved. "Yeah, definitely. We'll talk then."

Mrs. Johnson stacked the folders on top of one another and handed him the pile. "Put these back in the drawer in the office, please."

Brian stood from his seat and accepted the stack from her. "Thanks, Mom."

Mrs. Johnson nodded curtly and cleared his dirty dishes from the table.

Brian walked into the office, which was really just a small room where his father kept his typewriter, along with a couple of small filing cabinets and a bookshelf. Brian returned the college folders to their proper place in the cabinet, then glanced over at the phone on the desk. He hadn't seen or talked to Andy in three days, even though he'd left a message for him on Christmas Eve. More than likely, Andy had just been so busy spending time with his family that he had forgotten to call, but Brian wanted to be sure. Before he could stop himself, he lifted the phone from the cradle and dialed Andy's number.

Andy's sister Susanna picked up on the third ring. "Hello?"

"Oh, hi. It's, um, Brian. Brian Johnson. I'm a friend of Andy's. I met you the other day when--"

"Hi, Brian. How are you? Did you have a good Christmas?"

Brian bit his lip, thinking back to Christmas Eve at his aunt and uncle's house, where he's found out that they were getting a divorce. "Oh, it was, um…it was fine. What about you?"

"Hectic," she said, laughing. "There are too many of us over here. We're practically tripping over one another."

Brian smiled, imagining the chaos. "Sounds like fun."

Susanna laughed. "It was," she agreed. "Do you want to talk to Andy?"

Suddenly, Brian started feeling nervous. "Um, yeah. Yeah, if that's okay."

"I think he's still asleep. He was out late last night. Let me go check, alright?"

Brian nodded. "Yeah, sure."

There was some rustling on Susanna's end of the line, and then everything went still. Brian could hear someone talking in the background, probably one of the kids. A few minutes later, there was a loud shriek, and someone yelled, "Andy!" Brian's stomach flopped over.

"Hello?" Andy asked groggily.

"Oh, hey," said Brian. "I didn't mean to wake you up or anything. I was just…" He took a deep breath. "I just wanted to see how your Christmas went."

"It was fine," Andy said shortly, obviously not quite awake yet. Unlike Brian, Andy wasn't much of a morning person.

"That's good," Brian said quickly, trying to fill up the silence. "We did, too. We, uh, we watched movies all day. The heater went out, so we were all bundled up on the couch. It was so cold, all we did was eat soup and drink cocoa."

"That sucks," said Andy. There was a pause, then: "About the cold, I mean."

Brian nodded. "Yeah, I knew what you meant."

For a minute, neither of them said anything. Brian glanced over at the door leading out to the hallway, then back at the desk. "So, I was, um…I was wondering if maybe you wanted to come over and hang out or something. I got a bunch of new video games for Christmas, and I haven't tried all of them out yet."

"Today?"

Brian paused. "Oh, I don't know. I guess. Whenever, you know?"

There was some rustling around on Andy's end, and then he said, "I can't today. My brother is leaving tonight, and my mom wanted me to stick around the house."

"Todd?"

"No, Brett. He has to go back to work tomorrow."

"Oh." Brian paused thoughtfully. "Well, we could always, um…we could always go to the baseball fields."

Andy didn't say anything for a moment, and Brian wondered if he'd said the wrong thing. Just when he was about to reach in and snatch the words back, Andy spoke. "Yeah, okay."

Brian smiled. "Really? I mean, good. I'll, um, I'll see you later then."

"Yeah, I'll see you later."

Brian waited until Andy had hung up before he replaced the phone in its cradle. He stared at it for a long moment, then looked back down at the filing cabinet, which he had accidentally left open. He could see the labels on his college folders: University of Michigan, University of Illinois, Ohio State University…

Brian sighed and pushed the drawer closed.

* * *

That night, Brian lied to his parents and said he was going over to Andy's house to play basketball. Andy pulled up in front of the house at about nine o'clock, and Brian climbed into the Bronco.

"Hey," Andy greeted him. He motioned to the floor beneath Brian's feet. "I picked up some beer on the way over."

It had been a while since they'd brought beer out to the baseball fields, and when they did, it went all but unopened. "Oh, good," said Brian.

Andy pulled away from the curb, then reached forward and adjusted the dial on the radio. "When are they going to stop playing Christmas music on 99.1? It's not Christmas anymore."

Brian smiled. "Maybe you should write them a letter and complain."

Andy turned to glare at him, but Brian could see that he wasn't serious. "Maybe I will."

Brian grinned. "So, how did your Christmas go? Your sister said it was pretty crazy at your house."

Andy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, it was. I gave Todd and Stephanie my old room, so I've been sleeping in the living room with Brett. He's such an asshole. He kicked me off the couch, so I've been sleeping on the recliner." He shook his head. "Thank god he left tonight. He can sleep in his own damn bed, and I can sleep on the couch."

Brian laughed. "When are Todd and Susanna leaving?"

Andy thought about it for a minute. "I think Todd and Stephanie are staying for a while, since his semester doesn't start for another week and a half. Susanna's husband has to be back at work after New Year's, so they'll probably only be here for few more days."

"Oh." Brian nodded. "That's nice that they can stay, though."

Andy nodded and pulled into the tiny parking lot right next to the baseball fields. "Yeah, I guess."

Brian grabbed the beers followed Andy out to the field, which was almost completely dark except for the glow of streetlights coming from the street on the other side of the school. Brian nearly tripped over an empty carton of milk, which was inexplicably lying in the grass next to the bleachers.

"What do you, um…" Brian held up the beers. "What do you want me to do with these?"

Andy held his hand out, and Brian passed him the six-pack. Andy pulled one of the cans from its plastic loop and set the rest of them on the lowest seat on the bleachers. Then he sat down next to them and popped open his beer. "You gonna have one?" he asked Brian, looking up at him expectantly.

Brian paused uncertainly, wondering if they'd really come out there to drink or if Andy just wasn't in the mood to do anything else yet. After a moment, he sat down on the other side of the beers and pulled out a can, but didn't open it. "Yeah, sure."

Andy took another sip of his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He didn't say anything.

Brian cleared his throat. "So, um, Susanna said you got in late last night. Did your mom take you to look at Christmas lights again?"

Andy shook his head. "No, I went to a party."

Immediately, Brian felt his stomach fill with dread. "Oh."

Andy took another sip of beer. By the looks of it, he'd already finished off half of the can, which was quick for him. "My friend Joel invited me. We were friends back in high school."

Brian nodded. He knew who Joel Keller was. Joel was in a couple of Brian's classes, and Andy used to mention him sometimes when he talked about wrestling stuff. "Yeah, I remember him."

"I hadn't talked to him in a while, but he called me yesterday to see if I wanted to go. It was just a bunch of people I used to hang out with, but haven't seen in a while."

Brian tried not to feel jealous, but found it close to impossible. "Well, that's cool," he said lamely.

Andy nodded. "I ran into one of Claire's friends. She said Claire was in Paris for the holidays. She went with some of her sorority sisters."

Brian paused. "Must be nice."

Andy glanced up, and Brian could see him out of the corner of his eye, watching Brian closely. "What?" he said finally.

Brian looked up. "I said it must be nice. You know, to be able to go to Paris for Christmas."

Andy rolled his eyes. "No, I mean, what's wrong with you?"

Brian paused, then shook his head. "Nothing. Nothing's wrong with me."

Andy pursed his lips together irritably. "Just spit it out. I can tell there's something."

Brian let out a sharp breath through his nostrils. "It's nothing, okay? I just wish you'd told me. I tried calling you the other day, and…" He trailed off, knowing how desperate he sounded. "I just wish you'd told me about the party, that's all."

"Why?" asked Andy, sounding genuinely confused. "Did you want to go?"

Brian shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe…"

Andy frowned. "Are you serious?"

Brian could feel his cheeks burning despite the cold. "I don't know. I just…" He let out a frustrated breath, and it turned into a cloud in front of his face. "I just wish you'd told me where you were going."

"Why?" Andy asked, brow furrowed in confusion. "You don't tell me where you go all the time."

Brian felt his cheeks grow even warmer. That was probably because he never went anywhere worth mentioning. "I know, but I…I called your house, and you never called me back."

Andy paused, and Brian thought that he could see him soften a bit. "I just got busy, okay?"

Brian nodded quickly, wishing he'd never even brought it up. "Okay."

Andy sighed and looked down at his beer can, then took another sip. Brian watched him quietly for a moment, trying to figure out what to say next. He remembered what Andy had said about Claire and how one of her friends had been at that party, and he felt the realization clogging the back of his throat.

"So, there were, um, there were girls at the party?" he asked quietly.

Andy nodded, but didn't look up at him. "Yeah, of course," he said. "It would be a pretty bad party if there weren't."

Brian swallowed deeply and looked down at his beer, which he was still clutching in his hands, unopened. "Right."

Andy waited for a moment, then said, "What? What now?"

Brian sighed, suddenly tired. "Nothing. I don't want to know."

"Know what?"

Brian looked up, into Andy's eyes, so demanding. So blue, even in the darkness. "If you…"

Andy paused, and the anger in his eyes gave way to discomfort. "If I what?" he asked cautiously.

Brian could feel it rising in his stomach, that feeling of nausea. "Did you…" He paused, swallowing deeply. "Did you have sex with any of them?"

Andy looked down at the ground.

Brian felt the tears pricking the back of his eyes, and he wiped them away quickly, not wanting Andy to see them. "Great," he said. "That's…that's great."

"What did you expect?" Andy asked, still looking at the ground. "That I was going to tell them I couldn't because my friend _Brian _would get mad?" He scoffed. "Yeah, right."

The feeling in Brian's stomach shifted from one of nausea to something more painful, like maybe Andy was sliding a knife in, one inch at a time. He felt his legs vibrating, and not from the cold. "No," he said, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "I guess that would sound _dumb_, wouldn't it?"

Andy looked up, eyes narrowed in anger. "I don't need this from you!"

"Yeah, well, I don't need this from you either!" Brian retorted, as a surge of anger ripped through his body. "Why would you do something like that?"

"I never promised you _anything_," said Andy, jabbing a finger in his direction. "You have _no _right to be mad about this!"

"I didn't realize we had to promise each other anything," said Brian. "I thought it was obvious that we wouldn't…do _that_ with anyone else."

Andy's nostrils flared. "I'm not your fucking girlfriend!"

Brian stared at him, stunned. "I didn't say you were!"

"So, stop acting like I am!" Andy exclaimed. "I just wanted to hang out with my old friends, okay? I don't need your permission to go out and drink and have sex." He shook his head firmly, and Brian heard the beer sloshing around in the almost empty can. "I don't need anyone's permission anymore. It's my life. Not yours, not my dad's. _Mine_."

"I didn't say you needed my permission," Brian countered. "I'm not like your dad, so don't compare me to him. And what does that…" He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, which were so jumbled that he could hardly find the words. "What does that have to do with anything? You just…" He shook his head again. "You're being such an asshole. Why?"

Andy's eyes flickered with guilt, and he looked away.

Brian glanced down at the beer can in his hand, still cold from whatever convenience store freezer that Andy had pulled it from. His fingertips felt like ice. Carefully, he set the can down on the seat next to him and shoved his hands into his pockets to warm them.

"Brian."

Brian didn't look up. In his head, all he could see was Andy in bed with one of those girls, kissing her just like he'd kissed Brian. He swallowed the lump in his throat. "What?"

"I didn't actually…I didn't sleep with them."

Brian frowned and looked up. "What?"

Andy sighed angrily. "I didn't sleep with any of those girls last night. I didn't do anything."

Brian scoffed quietly and looked away. "Yeah, right."

"I didn't!" Andy exclaimed.

Brian looked back over at him. "You could have," he told him accusingly.

"Probably," Andy confirmed, but Brian could hear the hesitation in his voice.

"You said there were so many girls there," Brian continued, feeling the anger growing in his chest. Or maybe it wasn't anger, but something else. He couldn't tell, and it didn't matter anyway.

"There were," Andy said hesitantly.

"Well, I'm sure they were all over you. I'm sure every one of them wanted a piece of _Andrew Clark_." He spat out the last part, bitterness coloring his voice.

Andy didn't say anything, but he had his jaw clenched and his hands were balled up in tight fists. He was watching Brian closely, taking ragged breaths.

"So, why didn't you, Andy?" Brian demanded. "I mean, you obviously didn't do it for me, so why didn't you do it? Why didn't you have sex with all of them? Why didn't you just--"

"I don't know!" Andy shouted suddenly, face red with anger. "Okay? I don't _fucking_ know!"

Everything stopped then, and the words that were on the tip of Brian's tongue half an instant before suddenly died on his lips. Andy took a ragged breath and turned away, throwing his empty beer can under the bleachers.

Brian opened his mouth. "Andy…"

"Don't," Andy said shortly, standing up. "Whatever you were going to say…don't."

Brian nodded stiffly, felt his knee start to shake from the cold. "Okay."

**

* * *

A/N: Aw, poor babies. :( Anyway, please don't forget to review. I would love to hear what you thought of this chapter. Thanks!**


	8. When You Call My Name

**A/N: **Thank you to everyone who has read or reviewed this story. I really appreciate it.

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* * *

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Chapter Eight: When You Call My Name

* * *

On Thursday, two days after Christmas, Brian woke just before eight, like he always did. He turned towards the window, where the sunlight was filtering in through his curtains, and his eyelids fluttered closed. He reached up to rub his eyes with the back of his hand, then lifted his head from the pillow and reached down to pull his comforter away from his body.

And then it all came back to him at once: the baseball fields, the party, his fight with Andy, the silent ride back to Brian's house. Brian closed his eyes and let his head drop back onto the pillow with a soft thud. When he'd gone to bed the night before, part of him had hoped that he would wake up the next morning and everything would be better, or at least that he would have a clearer idea about how to handle the whole situation. So much for that.

He found his mother in the kitchen, standing in front of the pantry pulling out cereal boxes. When he walked in, she glanced up. "Morning."

Brian nodded. "Morning."

She glanced down at his pajama pants and bare feet. "You aren't going running?"

Brian figured that his mother knew his schedule just as well as she knew her own, because she always remembered what days that Brian went jogging, and if he deviated, she always asked him about it. "No," he answered, reaching up into the cupboard for a bowl. "Not today."

Mrs. Johnson handed him the box of Cheerios, and he accepted it from her. "Are you feeling alright?" she asked, watching him closely.

Brian nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine," he lied.

His mother frowned, but thankfully didn't say anything else.

A couple minutes later, Morgan bounded into the kitchen, followed closely by her father, who looked slightly less exuberant. Mr. Johnson was the only member of the family who _wasn't_ a morning person. He was never irritable or short-tempered in the morning, but he didn't say much either, and Brian knew that it took him a little bit longer to wake up than it did his wife and children.

"Mommy, can we have waffles?" asked Morgan.

"Not today," she answered.

Morgan sighed and reached for the box of Life cereal. She poured some into the bowl that Brian handed her, and Brian filled the rest of it up with milk for her, knowing that she would spill it all over the floor if she tried it herself.

"Catherine, are we out of coffee?" Mr. Johnson asked, rummaging through the counter above his head in search of the can of Maxwell's.

Mrs. Johnson lifted an eyebrow. "Harold, I already made you a pot. It's sitting right there."

Mr. Johnson turned to look at the coffee pot, which was more than halfway full. There was a thin line of steam escaping through a gap in the lid. "Oh." Pause. "Thank you, honey."

Mrs. Johnson rolled her eyes and turned back to the pantry.

Morgan, Brian, and their father went into the dining room to eat their breakfasts, while Mrs. Johnson stayed in the kitchen, cleaning out the pantry. Brian and his father didn't say much, for different reasons, but Morgan wouldn't shut up.

"Ashley said that Janie got a puppy for Christmas. It was brown with spots on it." She looked over at her father, who was staring at his coffee mug as though it held the secrets of the universe. "Daddy, I want a puppy. Can we have a puppy?"

Mr. Johnson looked up, brow furrowed. "What, sweetheart?"

The phone rang in the tiny walkway between the dining room and the kitchen, and Brian looked up in time to see his mother answer it. "Hello?"

"I want a puppy," Morgan repeated. "A little one."

Mr. Johnson narrowed his eyes in confusion. "Why?"

"Christine, I can't understand what you're saying," said Mrs. Johnson, putting a hand up against her ear to block out background noises. "You'll have to slow down."

Brian turned around in his chair. "Mom, is everything okay?"

"Because," Morgan told her father. "I like them. Puppies are cute."

"Well, let's think about it for a while, okay, sweetheart?" said Mr. Johnson.

"A what?" Mrs. Johnson asked, gripping the phone a little bit harder. Brian felt his heart start beating a little bit faster, and his mother's face suddenly paled. Her fingers turned white as she pressed down harder on the green plastic. "When?" she asked, a little bit quieter this time. She nodded, then said, "Hold on for a minute." She pulled the phone away from her ear and pressed her hand against the mouthpiece.

"Mom, what's wrong?" asked Brian, who was starting to get really worried. "What did she say?"

Morgan stopped talking to her father about dogs and turned to look at her mother. Mr. Johnson sat up a little straighter in his chair. "Catherine?" he asked.

Mrs. Johnson looked up at them, and Brian could see that she could hardly focus. "It's Daddy," she whispered.

Brian felt his stomach fill with dread, but Morgan didn't seem to understand what was going on. She looked over at her father, eyes wide with fear. "What's wrong with Daddy?" she demanded.

"No, Morgan," said Mrs. Johnson, fighting to keep the tears in check. "Not your daddy." She paused, and her voice broke then. "_My _daddy."

* * *

It had probably happened sometime in the early morning while he was still asleep. The paramedics said it was most likely a stroke, though they would have to wait for the autopsy report to know for sure. Michael found him when he went over to the house to set up the television they'd bought him for Christmas. Arthur Nelson, just like his eldest daughter and his eldest grandson, was an early riser, and when he didn't answer the door at 8:00 that morning, Michael knew something was wrong. He found his father-in-law in the bedroom, still covered in a thick layer of blankets from the night before, and he called the paramedics immediately. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything they could do.

Brian's mother stayed on the phone with her sister for a long time, getting details and making arrangements. She also called the funeral home that had taken care of the arrangements for her mother's funeral a couple of years previous, and they set up an appointment for her and Christine to meet with them the next morning. Through it all, Mrs. Johnson remained calm and almost businesslike. Brian saw her wiping at her eyes a couple of times, but other than that, she didn't cry at all.

Morgan seemed to be taking it pretty well. She didn't say much, just sat at the dining room table and played with her Winter Princess Barbie as she watched her mother make phone calls. Brian sat with her for a while, reading a science magazine and feeling incredibly useless.

About an hour after Christine's initial phone call, Brian's mother hung up the phone and let out a deep sigh. Brian looked up from his magazine, and Morgan stopped brushing Barbie's hair.

"I need to go over to the house," said Mrs. Johnson, closing the personal planner that she'd been using it to write down phone numbers and funeral information. "Michael's been over there all morning with the paramedics, and the coroner still hasn't arrived."

The word 'coroner' sent a chill down Brian's spine. "What about Dad?" he asked.

She shook her head. "He's coming with me. I need you to stay with Morgan."

Brian nodded. "Okay."

Mrs. Johnson turned away and started walking down the hallway towards the bedroom she shared with her husband. Without even thinking, Brian stood up and followed her. "Mom?"

His mother turned, eyebrow lifted expectantly. "What?"

Brian swallowed deeply. "Um, nothing, I just…"

She frowned. "What is it?" she asked impatiently.

Brian felt his cheeks grow warm. All he wanted to do was say that he was sorry and that he loved her. What was so hard about that? "Nothing," he muttered.

Suddenly, the phone rang, and Brian's mother sighed. "That's probably Christine again," she said, brushing past him to go back to the kitchen to answer it. She picked up the phone and pressed it against her ear. "Hello?"

Brian let out a deep breath and followed her back into the dining room.

"Sure, he's right here." Mrs. Johnson held the phone out for Brian. "It's for you."

Brian paused uncertainly, then reached out to take it. "Thanks."

His mother nodded and went back down the hallway towards her bedroom.

Brian lifted the phone to his ear. "Hello?"

"Hey…it's me."

Brian felt his stomach turn over at the sound of his voice. "Hey," he said quietly.

"I, uh…" Andy paused, and Brian heard him shuffling around on the other end of the line. "I was just calling to…you know, to talk or whatever."

Brian bit his lip, remembering how they'd left one another last night. When he'd gotten out of the Bronco, he could hardly even look at Andy, and Andy seemed to feel the same way. They hadn't even said goodbye.

Andy cleared his throat. "About last night…"

The front door flew open, and Brian heard his father step into the foyer. "Catherine?" he called out, shutting the door behind him.

Brian sighed and pulled the mouthpiece away. "Dad?"

Mr. Johnson walked into the dining room, pulling the hood of his coat away from his head. "Where's your mother?"

"She's in the bedroom getting dressed. She said you're going to Granddad's house."

Mr. Johnson nodded and started walking down the hall. "Thank you," he said over his shoulder.

"Is everything okay?" Andy asked.

Brian moved the mouthpiece back in place. "Uh, yeah. Well, no. I mean…" He paused, let out a little sigh. "My grandfather died this morning."

Andy was quiet for a few seconds, and then he said, "I'm sorry."

There was something very genuine about the way he said it, and Brian didn't really realize how much he needed to hear Andy's voice until that moment. "Yeah," he said quietly.

"What happened?"

"Um, a stroke maybe. They don't know for sure yet."

"Oh." There was some rustling around again on Andy's end, and then it was quiet again. "Is everyone okay? Your parents?"

"My mom is okay, I guess. I think everyone's just shocked." He glanced over at Morgan, who was still sitting at the dining room table, brushing her Barbie's hair and pretending that she wasn't listening to his conversation. "My parents are about to leave to go over to his house and, um…" He couldn't bear to say anything about 'the coroner' or 'the body', for Morgan's sake and his own, so he just stopped talking.

"Oh…well, I guess I should let you go then."

Brian pursed his lips together awkwardly, fighting off the disappointment. He wanted to keep Andy on the line, just to hear his voice. "Yeah, okay."

"I'll talk to you later."

"Yeah, okay," Brian said again, unable to come up with anything better. "Bye."

Andy hung up the phone, but Brian waited until he heard the dial tone before he did the same. He turned to look at Morgan, who was watching him, expression blank. Little pieces of her light brown hair were sticking up in all directions, like a halo illuminated by the chandelier above her head.

"Are Mommy and Daddy going over to Granddad's house?" she asked.

Brian nodded. "Yes."

Morgan paused. "How long will they be gone?"

Brian shrugged. "I don't know. A few hours maybe."

Morgan considered this for a minute. "What are _we_ going to do?" she asked finally.

"Just stay here," Brian answered. "You can play Barbies or watch movies if you want." He paused. "Do you want to watch a movie?"

Morgan shook her head and stood from her seat. "I'm going to play in my room."

Brian nodded, but Morgan was already halfway down the hall and didn't notice. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair, which had grown pretty long over the past semester and was in serious need of a haircut. More than likely, his mother would make him go to the barber before the funeral.

After a moment, Brian gave up on trying to figure out what he was supposed to do next and went back to his bedroom. He collapsed onto his bed and lay there for a few minutes, gazing up at the solar system mobile above his bed. Jupiter stared back at him with his Great Red Spot, like an eye that never closed.

Brian glanced over at his bedside table, where he kept his Rubik's cube. He never played with it anymore, mostly because he'd gotten tired of trying to solve it. He'd read about some girl in Budapest who'd solved it in less than 23 seconds or something, but he had no idea how she'd done it. He'd owned the cube for nearly four years, and he hadn't even gotten close. His friend Elliot had a book about how to solve the cube, and he'd told Brian that he was doing it wrong by solving it one side at a time instead of one row at a time. Brian couldn't really argue with that. He would get one side finished and start on the next, only to ruin everything by twisting it the wrong way. Like, just when it looked like he had it all figured out, he had to go and screw it up again.

Brian reached over and grabbed the Rubik's cube from his nightstand. He leaned back against his headboard and started playing with it idly, not even really focusing on what he was doing. He remembered when Christine and Michael had given it to him for Christmas four years previous, back when it was first starting to get popular. He'd sat on their couch playing with it after everyone had opened presents, even though Rob was looking at him like he was the biggest loser he'd ever seen in his life. But what he really remembered--even if it hadn't seemed very special or important at the time--was that his grandfather was sitting next to him the entire time, not saying anything, just watching him turn the colored blocks around and around.

Suddenly, someone knocked on the door to Brian's room. He sat up in bed and put the Rubik's cube on the bed next to him. "Come in."

The door opened slowly, but instead of seeing his mother like he expected, Brian saw Andy. He hesitated in the doorway for a moment, hands stuffed into the pockets of his ski jacket. "Hey."

Brian stood from the bed, and the Rubik's cube fell onto the floor. "Hey."

"I, um…" Andy motioned behind him, out into the hallway. "Your dad let me in. I hope it's okay. I just…"

Brian nodded quickly. "Yeah, it's fine."

Andy didn't say anything else. He took his hands out of his pockets, and Brian realized that he wasn't wearing gloves, even though the temperature outside was below freezing. No hat either. Brian looked up and let out a sharp breath through his nostrils. The expression on Andy's face was so sad and fierce, and Brian immediately recognized that it was for his benefit. His chin started to wobble, and he opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

Then Andy took a couple of steps forward, and they came together like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, Brian with his arms around Andy's neck and Andy with his arms tight around Brian's middle. Brian buried his face in the curve of Andy's neck and pushed his hand through Andy's hair, pulling him closer. Andy didn't say anything or move away, just stood there and held him, even when the tears came like a flash flood--hard and fast, without any warning at all. Brian tried to stop them, but everything was coming at him all at once--his grandfather, the fight from the night before--and there really wasn't much that he could do to keep them in. Through it all, he could feel Andy's breath against his ear, warm and steady.

Brian didn't know how long they stood there like that--with his face pressed against Andy's neck and his fingers threaded through Andy's hair--but it couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes. All he knew was that at some point after the tears had run dry, he heard someone clear their throat. He looked up to see that his mother was standing in the doorway, watching them closely. Immediately, Brian pulled away from Andy and started wiping at his eyes.

Mrs. Johnson glanced over at Andy, then back at her son. "We're, um…" She paused uncomfortably, looking for the first time in her life like she didn't know what to say. "We're leaving now. I just wanted to tell you that there's lunchmeat in the fridge for later. Make sure Morgan doesn't just eat junk today."

Brian nodded quickly. There were so many things that he should have said, but he felt so drained, and he couldn't think of a single damn one of them. "I won't," he promised.

Once again, Mrs. Johnson looked over at Andy, who was watching her, waiting. She looked like she wanted to say something, but she must have decided against it, because she glanced back at her son and nodded curtly. "We'll be back later," she told him, then turned and disappeared into the hallway.

When she was gone, Brian looked over at Andy. Neither of them said anything for a moment. Finally, Brian cleared his throat and reached up to wipe his cheek. "I'm sorry I got your shirt wet," he said lamely.

Andy shrugged and smiled, though Brian could tell that it was kind of forced. "It's okay."

Brian started to say something about his mom, but he didn't know what he could say that Andy hadn't already figured out for himself, and he didn't want to make it worse. "You, um…you probably have to go, huh?"

Andy shook his head. "No, I can stay for a while." He paused. "If you want me to."

Brian swallowed. "Yeah, I want you to," he said quietly.

Andy nodded. "Then I will."

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**A/N: **Please review if you have time. Thank you. : ) 


	9. The Hero

**A/N: **It's been a long time since I've updated this story, and I apologize for leaving everyone hanging after that last chapter. I'm definitely not going to be abandoning this story, I can assure you, but there may be times when I'm uninspired (cough:writer's block:cough) or busy with other things, so I appreciate your patience.

I do want to say thank you to everyone who has reviewed this story, especially since my last update. Every time I read a review for this story I smile, and I'm so glad that there are people out there that want me to continue it. I wasn't really sure that that was going to happen when I first started writing this story, but I'm so glad it has. Thank you for all of your kind words. Enjoy this chapter. : )

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Chapter Nine: The Hero

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"Use the gun!"

Brian glanced over at Andy, who was sitting next to him on the couch, eyes glued to the television screen in front of them. Brian's parents had left two hours ago to go to his grandfather's house, and Andy had offered to stay and keep him company. They'd kept themselves busy by watching a marathon of _Magnum P.I._, one of Andy's favorite shows. In the current episode, Magnum was involved with a poker-playing Texan heiress, who actually turned out to be a Russian spy that was using Magnum to steal a roll of microfilm. The two of them had barely escaped the yacht - though Brian was still wondering how their five armed opponents had managed to miss _every_ shot they took from only ten feet away - but they ended up stranded on a desert island with no food or water. Luckily, Magnum's friends found them and picked them up in a helicopter, with the bad guys right on their heels.

"The gun!" Andy's hand curled tightly around the arm of the couch. "The gun!"

Brian had watched enough television with Andy to know what he was like when he got excited about something onscreen, but it was still funny to watch. Andy tried really hard to keep his emotions under wraps, but every once in a while it would burst out of him, like he just couldn't take it anymore.

"Yes!" Andy exclaimed, slamming his fist into the couch cushion next to him. Onscreen, the helicopter tailing Magnum and his crew crashed into a grove of trees, exploding on impact.

Brian started laughing. "That was really cool."

Andy nodded enthusiastically. "Cool," he agreed.

The episode ended with Magnum and the heiress-spy lady sharing a romantic moment before she left to go back to Russia or wherever she was from. Andy drummed his fingers impatiently on his thigh as he waited for the next episode, where hopefully something else would explode.

"I wish I could go Hawaii," said Brian, just to fill the silence.

Andy nodded. "Hawaii's pretty cool. Great surfing."

Brian lifted his eyebrows. "You surf?"

Andy shrugged. "A little. My uncle lives in Honolulu, and I used to go visit him during the summer and Spring Break."

For some reason, Brian was finding it difficult get over his surprise. "So, are you, like, really good or…"

Andy laughed. "I don't know. I guess I got pretty good. My uncle owns a surf shop, so I spend all my time on the beach when I go."

"Wow," said Brian. "You never told me about that."

Andy shrugged and glanced back at the screen. "I haven't been since Spring Break last year. But I might go again in March…if my parents let me." As he said this, he pursed his lips together so firmly that the skin went white and his eyes flickered with anger. Then he looked up at the television, where they were showing a preview of the upcoming episode, and said, "This is a good one."

And it was. Magnum had a really cool red sports car - a Ferrari 308 GTS, according to Andy - and he spent half the episode cruising the island for clues. Andy was unabashedly jealous of Magnum's luck at landing a car like that, and every time there was a shot of the car, Andy would lean forward a little bit in his seat to get a better look. At one point he took off down the highway, tires squealing, and Brian saw Andy's mouth drop open at the sheer beauty of the moment.

"What would you give for a car like that?" asked Andy, not even bothering to tear his eyes away from the screen.

Brian paused thoughtfully. "I don't know," he replied. "I mean, it's cool, but…I don't know, what about you? What would you give?"

"Anything," Andy replied, without missing a beat.

Brian nodded. "Oh. That's…that's a lot."

"Are we going to eat lunch?"

Brian looked up to see Morgan standing in the doorway a few feet away, clutching her Winter Princess Barbie in one hand. Her hair was sticking up in the back, probably from static cling. Barbie's hair was arranged in a similar fashion, though Brian had to presume that it wasn't intentional.

"Sure," he replied quickly, jumping up from the couch. "Do you want a sandwich?"

Morgan nodded and looked back at Andy, who had also stood from the couch. Brian turned to see him standing there with his hands folded awkwardly at his sides. "Well, I should go," he said, nodding in Brian's direction.

"No, stay," said Brian. When he heard the strain of desperation in his voice, he swallowed it down. "I mean, we have plenty of food. I could make you a sandwich. Or two."

Andy smiled faintly. "Yeah, okay."

Brian made one sandwich for Morgan, two for himself, and three for Andy, who had apparently missed breakfast and hadn't even told him, though he must have been starving the entire time. The three of them sat down at the dining room table, and Morgan immediately started in on her cookies.

"So, how long will your parents be gone for?" asked Andy, through a mouthful of ham and cheese sandwich.

Brian shrugged. "I don't know. Until this afternoon sometime, I guess."

Andy nodded and swallowed his sandwich. For a moment, neither of them said anything, just chewed in silence. Morgan was still watching them, especially Andy, with eyes that revealed very little about what she was thinking. She also kept sticking her inside of her mouth while she was eating, wiggling her loose tooth around.

"Stop doing that, and eat your sandwich first," Brian told Morgan, thinking that his mother would have said the same thing if she was there. He'd done everything the way he thought she would have, even cut the crusts off of Morgan's sandwich the way she liked. The least she could do was eat it.

"I want to eat my cookies first," she protested, picking up another from her plate. She shoved it into her mouth, biting down roughly.

Brian rolled his eyes and looked away. "Fine." He half-expected her to say something else, maybe about him minding his own business, but she didn't. He didn't even hear her chewing. After a few seconds, he looked back up at her.

Morgan was staring at him with her eyes wide as saucers, mouth hanging open to reveal chocolate-covered teeth and a tongue smothered in cream filling. There was also blood, enough of it to send his own blood screeching to a sudden halt. "Morgan?" he said stupidly.

Morgan shook her head once, and then her eyes welled up with tears and she burst out in a single sob, mouth still hanging open. Brian was frozen to his seat, trying to figure out what his mother would do, but Andy was much faster. He grabbed his napkin and stood up from his seat, squatting down next to Morgan's chair. Without even the slightest hesitation, he reached forward and put one hand on Morgan's jaw to keep her mouth open.

"It's okay," he told her, in a voice that Brian had never even heard before. "Just keep your mouth open for a minute while I find it, okay?" She nodded mutely, and he reached into her mouth, fishing around amongst the cookies debris until he pulled out a single, bloody tooth. His fingers were covered in spit and chocolate.

"There," he said, setting the tooth down on her napkin. "You didn't swallow it."

Another tear escaped, but Morgan hiccupped in relief. "My mouth is gross," she told him, the words coming out kind of jumbled since she still couldn't close her mouth.

Andy laughed. "You should rinse it out with water, maybe even with some salt."

Brian, who hadn't moved the entire time, suddenly realized that he was still sitting there, dumbstruck. "Come on," he told Morgan, trying to keep his voice steady, "I'll get you some."

"No, I want Andy to get it," she said, shrinking back from his outstretched hand.

Brian felt his heart sink, and he glanced over at Andy, who looked uncomfortable and slightly apologetic. Morgan was also looking at Andy, mouth still hanging open as she waited. A line of clear brown drool dribbled over her bottom lip and started down her chin.

"The cups are in the cabinet above the dishwasher," Brian said quietly.

Andy hesitated for a moment, then helped Morgan out of her chair. When they were out of sight, Brian let out a deep sigh and tipped his head forward so that his chin could rest against his palm. Why did he always do that? It always seemed like right when he needed to take action – and fast – he panicked and froze up. Every single time. How could anyone hope to depend on him for _anything_ if he couldn't even help his younger sister with her first loose tooth?

"Look!" Morgan announced, bounding back into the dining room. She was holding her tooth out in front of her for Brian's inspection, smiling brightly to show off the new gap in her teeth. "Look," she said again, sticking her palm under Brian's nose. "It's so big."

"That's because of the root," Brian explained. "You don't see it when it's in your mouth."

Morgan considered this piece of information for a moment as she stared at the tooth in her hand. "I'm going to put it under my pillow right now," she said finally. "Just so I don't forget and the tooth fairy doesn't bring me anything."

Brian nodded, and Morgan skipped off to her room, clutching her tooth in her hand so that she wouldn't drop it. When she was gone, Andy returned to his seat and looked over at Brian.

"You okay?" he asked.

Brian glanced up. "Oh, yeah. Of course." He paused thoughtfully, looking down at his sandwiches. "You were really good at that. I mean, at helping her."

Andy picked up one of his sandwiches, but didn't take a bite. "I was there when my cousin's daughter lost her first tooth. She kind of freaked out, and I had to help her…" He motioned vaguely towards his teeth, grimacing slightly. "…clean it up and wash it. It kind of freaked _me_ out that she was so upset, because I was really excited when I lost my first tooth." He paused. "Well, the one that Brett didn't punch out," he clarified.

"Me, too!" Brian exclaimed, smiling for the first time since all the commotion started. "I mean, I was really excited about mine. I couldn't stop playing with it."

Andy grinned. "Yeah, me, too. Except I had to be careful because Brett kept threatening to come in while I was sleeping and tie the loose tooth to a doorknob and slam it shut."

Brian's eyes widened. "Would he seriously do that?"

Andy shrugged and took a bite of his sandwich. "I don't know, maybe," he said through a mouthful of ham and cheese. "He didn't do it, but I'm sure he considered it."

"He sounds like a total asshole," said Brian, shaking his head in disbelief.

Andy burst out laughing. "Yeah, he is. I guess older brothers are supposed to be that way."

Brian considered that for a moment. "But Todd wasn't like that, was he?" he asked, referring to Andy's oldest brother.

Andy shook his head. "No, he was so much older than me. I mean, Brett's three years older, but I was only six when Todd graduated from high school. Besides, he was always the responsible one."

_Like me_, thought Brian. _At least I'm supposed to be._ "Oh."

Andy took another bite of his sandwich, and a drop of mayonnaise spilled over the side and landed on his sweatshirt. Brian waited for him to look down and wipe it off, but Andy was apparently oblivious, because continued eating without pausing to clean up.

"You've got, um…"

Andy glanced up. "Huh?"

Brian bit his lip to keep from laughing. "Nothing, you've just got some mayonnaise on your shirt." He pointed to the center of Andy's sweatshirt, where the mayonnaise blended with the white 'H' in Ohio.

Andy glanced down. "Oh." He used his finger to wipe off the smear, but instead of wiping it on his napkin like Brian expected, he lifted it to his mouth and licked it off. Surprised, Brian burst out laughing.

Andy looked up, eyes wide. "What?" he asked, bewildered.

Brian's laughter dissolved into a soft chuckle. "Nothing," he said, shaking his head. "I'm just…" He couldn't think of anything to say that didn't sound dumb, so he just sighed. "Nothing."

Andy nodded and took another bite of his sandwich. Brian watched him for a minute before he picked up one of his own and took a big bite.

…_I'm just glad you're here._

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Andy's mom was expecting him to help her take down Christmas decorations, so he left soon after they'd finished eating lunch. Morgan was sad to see him go, but Andy promised that he would be back to see how much money the tooth fairy left her, and that must have been enough, because she finally let him leave, however reluctantly.

When he was gone, Morgan went back into her bedroom and Brian settled back into his chair in the living room. He watched a couple episodes of Magnum, but he had to admit that it wasn't nearly as much fun to watch it alone. About halfway into the second episode, he was asleep, head tucked up against the couch cushions.

He woke to the sound of the back door opening, and a few seconds later his mother appeared in the doorway to the living room. "Hi," he said groggily, reaching up to wipe the sleep from his eyes.

"Where's Morgan?" she asked, setting her purse down on the recliner.

"In her room."

The door slammed shut, and Mr. Johnson walked into the living room carrying his scarf in one hand. He tossed it onto the recliner next to his wife's purse, then did the same with his coat. Mrs. Johnson was looking at the television screen, where Magnum was walking along the beach interviewing a surfer.

"Did everything go alright?" Brian asked, looking from one to the other.

His father nodded. "We just had to do a bunch of paperwork at the hospital. Your mom has an appointment with the director of the funeral home tomorrow morning."

"Oh." He looked over at his mom, who was busying herself with unbuttoning her overcoat. He tried to think of something to say, but everything sounded kind of useless in his head. Morgan chose that moment to walk into the room, holding her hand in a fist in front of her.

"Daddy, look!" she said loudly, running up to him and baring her teeth to show the gap. "It came out."

"Well, look at that," said her father approvingly. He reached up and gently pushed back her upper lip with his thumb to get a better look. "You could stick a straw through that hole!"

Morgan's eyes widened. "Really?" she asked hopefully. "Can I try?"

Mr. Johnson chuckled. "We'll try it later," he promised.

Morgan turned to her mother, who was sitting on the edge of the couch next to her son, taking off her earrings. "Look, Mommy," she said, holding out her hand so that she could get a better look at her tooth. "It came out while I was eating a cookie."

Mrs. Johnson blinked and looked up. "I see," she said quietly, cupping her daughter's open hand with her own. "Did you rinse your mouth out with salt water?"

Morgan nodded. "Andy helped me."

Even though he had no reason to be embarrassed about this, Brian immediately remembered the awkward position that his mother had found them in earlier, and he felt himself blushing at Morgan's piece of news. His mother glanced over at him, eyebrow arched expectantly but her expression otherwise neutral. "Did he?" she replied mildly.

Morgan nodded seriously. "He also helped me get the tooth out of my mouth. It was stuck--" She paused to stick her finger into her mouth, pointing at the back of her tongue with sticky fingers. "—ite ear, an wen unner by tun an I aloast swahowed it."

"You almost swallowed it?" her mother translated.

Morgan nodded and removed her finger from her mouth. "But Andy took it out before I did."

Mrs. Johnson glanced over at Brian, then back at Morgan. "Well, it's a good thing he was here then."

Morgan smiled awkwardly, still not used to the gap in her teeth. "He's my hero."

"That's wonderful," said Mrs. Johnson, but Brian could hear the edge in her voice and he didn't know what it meant. Did she suspect what was happening between him and Andy? Was she angry at him? Maybe she was angry that Brian had to get his friend to help Morgan with the tooth instead of doing it himself, or maybe she was just tired after an understandably horrible day. With his mother, it was so hard to tell.

"Well, I need to make some phone calls," Mrs. Johnson announced, breaking into his thoughts. She stood from the couch and grabbed her purse. "I'll be in the kitchen."

Brian nodded, but she wasn't even looking at him, so she didn't see it. "Okay."

When their mother was out of sight, Morgan looked up at her father. "I'm going to go put my tooth back under my pillow," she told him. "For the tooth fairy."

Mr. Johnson, who had been watching his wife leave the room, glanced up at his daughter. "That sounds good, sweetheart," he said distractedly.

Morgan grinned and ran back down the hallway towards her room.

For a moment, neither Brian nor his father said anything. Mr. Johnson was gathering their coats and scarves from the recliner, and he hardly seemed to remember that anyone was left in the room. Brian cleared his throat. "Uh, dad?"

Mr. Johnson glanced up. "Yes, Brian?"

Brian paused awkwardly. "Is, um…is mom okay?"

His father didn't answer right away, but when he did, it seemed to require a great deal of effort. "She's doing fine," he said slowly. "She's a strong person."

Brian nodded. "Is there anything I need to…anything I should do, you know, to help?"

Mr. Johnson released a deep breath. "Just look after your sister, and help Mom with whatever she needs. We need to support her however we can."

Brian nodded again. "Yeah, okay. I'll, I'll do that."

His father nodded and tucked his coat under one arm. "I know you will." Without saying anything else, he walked out of the room and into the hallway to hang their coats up in the closet.

When he was gone, Brian settled back on the couch and glanced up at the television screen, where Magnum was talking to a little boy in swim trunks. He swiped his hand behind the boy's ear and pulled it back to reveal a quarter. The boy grinned and reached for it, eyes bright with excitement.

"Quarters," Brian murmured thoughtfully.

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That night, sometime after his parents had gone to bed, Brian crept into the bathroom dividing his room from Morgan's and pushed open the door leading to her bedroom. She had the closet door cracked open, and there was a thin shaft of light spilling out onto carpet. Her Care Bears nightlight was plugged into the wall right next to her bed, just in case she had to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom.

Morgan was snuggled under her comforter, sheets tucked all the way up to her chin to protect her from the cold. Her tangled light brown hair was splayed out across the pillow, except for a couple of strands that were pasted to her cheeks with sweat. He could hear her soft, measured breathing, could see her chest rise and fall in the semi-darkness.

Carefully, he lifted the corner of her pillow up away from the mattress, slid two quarters under the pillow and stepped back. Morgan let out a little sigh and turned over on her side, but she didn't wake up. Her fingers curled around the edge of her pillowcase, and Brian smiled fondly.

Before she could wake up and find him there, Brian slipped back into the bathroom and shut the door behind him.

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**A/N:** I have to admit that this chapter was kind of hard for me to write after being away from this story for so long. I hope everyone enjoyed it anyway. Please review! 


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